Expanding the Soul.

Today's chapter is just the surprise some of us (myself emphatically included) need to hear.

In "Expanding the Soul," Brackley takes up the notion of an exaggerated humility that binds rather than frees. In fact it is not really humility at all, but fear masquerading as humility, a vice pretending to be a virtue. He writes (110-112):

Many of us clip our own wings, or let others clip them. We remain silent and inactive when bold speech and action are called for. We can end up like T.S. Eliot's Prufrock, measuring out our lives with coffee spoons... Self-doubt prevents many of us from taking up new challenges. We avoid risks for fear of failure...

This drives [us] to anguish and prevents [us] from doing good. While God often inspires good people to undertake bold initiatives, the hypersensitive are subject to paralyzing doubts that keep them from translating their inspirations into action. They spontaneously ask themselves questions like, "Am I really seeking my own glory?" "Will this cause scandal?" "Would it be safer to back off, or at least wait?" "Couldn't x, y, or z go wrong?"

Guilty as charged, your honor.

A different way is needed. And that way, Ignatius suggests is not to throw out the humility of solidarity, but rather to make it a truer humility - a richer and more authentic humility.

Brackley writes (123):

The challenges we confront ought to inspire humility - but the authentic humility that leads to bold, creative action.

A humility that leads not to paralyzing self-doubt but to the bold, creative action of humility-in-practice; a humility that leads not to the hollow belief that is really unbelief but to the bold, creative action that springs from faith in the sure promise of God's project.

Once again, Ignatius does not sound so far from his reforming contemporary, Martin Luther, who wrote:

If you are a preacher of mercy, do not preach an imaginary but the true mercy. If the mercy is true, you must therefore bear the true, not an imaginary sin. God does not save those who are only imaginary sinners. Be a sinner, and let your sins be strong (sin boldly), but let your trust in Christ be stronger, and rejoice in Christ who is the victor over sin, death, and the world. We will commit sins while we are here, for this life is not a place where justice resides. We, however, says Peter (2. Peter 3:13) are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth where justice will reign.

To "sin boldly" is, I think a characteristic of what Brackley calls the "magnanimous person" (122):

The magnanimous person is, literally, a great-souled individual, an expansive spirit. With appropriate self-esteem and a realistic sense of their talents, great-hearted individuals think big. They refuse to bog down in trivia. Unperturbed by minor grievances, indifferent to the "trinkets" of wealth and status, they are spontaneously generous, even prodigal, the opposite of the stingy, shrunken soul.

Great-hearted communities think this Way, too.

They live a Way of Life that is life abundant, overflowing with expansive spirit, full of boldly creative action, all in the service of God's Project of manna and mercy for all, a Project promised in history and even now breaking into our world. They live the Way of Christ.

And that is something worth living for.