I hadn’t read Barbara Brown Taylor’s An Alter in the World for some time and picked it up again and came across what I thought might be another useful beginning place for good conversations: Reverence.
According to the classical philosopher Paul Woodruff, reverence is the virtue that keeps people from trying to act like gods. "To forget that you are only human," he says, "to think you can act like a god—this is the opposite of reverence." While most of us live in a culture that reveres money, reveres power, reveres education and religion, Woodruff argues that true reverence cannot be for anything that human beings can make or manage by ourselves. By definition, he says, reverence is the recognition of something greater than the self—something that is beyond human creation or control, that transcends full human understanding. God certainly meets those criteria, but so do birth, death, sex, nature, truth, justice, and wisdom.
…Reverence stands in awe of something—something that dwarfs the self, that allows human beings to sense the full extent of our limits—so that we can begin to see one another more reverently as well.
An irreverent soul who is unable to feel awe in the presence of things higher than the self is also unable to feel respect in the presence of things it sees as lower than the self, Woodruff says. This raises real questions about leaders, especially religious leaders, who cite reverence for what is good as their warrant for proclaiming whole populations of people evil.
It is helpful I think to be regularly reminded of our place in the world and to take a stance of reverence and humility.