Book Review: Humble Roots

[osprey_archer]

Another book from Netgalley, Hannah Anderson’s Humble Roots: How Humility Grounds and Nourishes Your Soul is a bit out of the way of the things I normally read - in particular I don’t read much Christian inspiration, unless C. S. Lewis counts.

But I really loved the cover so I thought I’d take a chance on it, and while I have some caveats, I did find the book helpful and enjoyable. It made a nice pendent to America the Anxious, which suggests that the roots of our anxiety lie in our quest for happiness. Humble Roots suggests that our anxiety grows from our search for perfection and control, and it strikes me that these two explanation dovetail: treating happiness like a quest means treating it as something that you can perfect and control, as if life couldn’t throw you for a loop with a car crash or a sudden death in the family or anything else it likes.

Humility, in Anderson’s book, lies in understanding that we are not and cannot be in perfect control of our lives. Once we accept this, our humility can free us “from the cycle of stress, performance, and competition.”

The book did rely more heavily on quotations from Scripture than I personally would have preferred (C. S. Lewis never needed to quote this much!), but then I’m not the book’s intended audience. And despite that scaffolding, I found Humble Roots’ steady insistence that we are often helpless and that’s okay somehow comforting. I can’t be in control all the time, and that means sometimes I don’t even need to try. Thank God.

I also really liked this observation: “If a person must announce his humility because we wouldn’t see it otherwise, he is not a truly humble person.” I’ve noticed this about a lot of qualities, not just humility. If someone has to explain that they are compassionate, or not an asshole, or filled with the warmth of lovingkindness… that’s a good sign that the truth is the opposite, or else they wouldn’t need to clue you in.

Comments

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

At the very least, someone who has to trumpet their virtues hasn't cottoned on to the notion of virtue being its own reward and/or has a strong need for external validation.

(And, as a flawed human, I understand those feelings, especially when you think of real-life injustices, where someone works very hard and someone else gets the credit. But if we're talking about fundamental reasons for being courageous, or generous, or kind, it's because of the goodness of those things and not for the accolades that you receive if you demonstrate them.)

Then there are people who mention their flaws. It's not exactly a symmetrical situation, I don't think. If it were, then you'd expect that it was that the people were trying to warn others of something that the others hadn't noticed--and sometimes maybe that *is* it, but sometimes it's to mitigate the bad effects that are going to flow back to the person because of the flaw ("I told you I have a problem with procrastination; I warned you lots of times--so you can't/shouldn't be angry with me"). And sometimes it's because the person wants to be reassured that they don't have the flaw.

... In conclusion, people are are complicated.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

I think it also depends a bit on what the virtue is. I think people are more reliable when they're reporting on qualities like being detail-oriented or getting things in on time or stuff like that - qualities that have some quantifiable measure and aren't dependent on how other people see you.

Whereas if someone says something like "I'm a good listener," sometimes they are and sometimes this supposed tidbit about their personality is coming halfway through a long conversation where it's clear they haven't really understood a thing you've said.

And ha, yeah, I've definitely run into people who warn you about how they're always late as if that's a substitute for actually showing up on time. But I told you! How can you be mad when I told you about it!

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

There is a lot of Christian books on NetGalley, isn't there? It always surprises me, because it's not a genre I encounter much anywhere else.

our anxiety grows from our search for perfection and control
I'm kinda fascinated by this! It's a very Buddhist idea to me – though of course it should work equally well from a Christian perspective, it's just that I haven't seen it there before. Does the author ever mention Buddhism?

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

I actually didn't realize this one was a Christian book till I'd requested it, and then I was like "eh, might as well go with it." I think usually in bookstores and libraries it tends to be more segregated out, whereas on Netgalley it's just kind of there with everything else.

I don't think the author mentions Buddhism, although I wasn't reading super attentively, so it's possible.