The Gift of Humiliation and Other Prayers

A special announcement from TSB about its future endeavors. New TSB pod w/ Josh Radnor. Claudia Lonow and family.Kim Addonizio shreds. Alexa play Talking Heads.

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We had Josh Radnor on the pod this week, and we shifted in and out of some of the spiritual challenges he's had grappling with fame. Josh said he's had his heart broken by many spiritual gurus he's sought counsel from, but one person who hasn't disappointed him so far has been his friendship with Franciscan priest Richard Rohr.

"[Rohr] said a couple of years ago he was starting to feel really fancy. You know, Bono was flying him all over the world, and he was counseling more famous, bold, faced names. And he started to like it. And he said I'm at a spiritually perilous moment. So he started praying for one good humiliation a day. And he says he gets it. You know, the email comes through that says he's a heretic or a charlatan—whatever the thing is, just reminds him that he's still just a bozo on the bus. If you're alert, you know if you're paying attention like we all get one good humiliation."

I found this interview where Rohr elaborated on this concept more, explaining why daily humiliation is necessary for him.

"Some years ago, I started recognizing that I was getting an awful lot of adulation and praise and some people treating me far more importantly than I deserved. And I realized I was growing used to it, that the ego just loves all of this admiration and projection. And a lot of it was projection. And I didn't want fame and well-knownness and guru status to totally destroy me. So for me, this became a necessity, that I had to watch how I react to not getting my way, to people not agreeing with me, to people not admiring me—and there's plenty of them—and that I actually needed that. And so I do, I still, I ask God for one good humiliation a day, and I usually get it, one hate letter or whatever it might be. [laughs] And then what I have to do, Krista, is I have to watch my reaction to it. And I've got to be honest with you, my inner reaction—I'm not proud to tell you—is defensive, is, 'That's not true. You don't understand me.' I can just see how well-defended my ego is. And of course, even your critics—and I have plenty of them—at least 10 to 20 percent of what they're saying is usually true."

It's challenging for me to think about these sorts of things—I feel like I've been humiliated so often in my life, bullied, and disrespected that I'm prone to defensiveness and hypersensitivity already. But this week, I definitely had my ego swollen a few times, but here are a couple things that kept me humble.

1. I came out of the shower shirtless, and two of my children yelled, "Ahhhhh, big hairy belly monster, ahhhhh." That doesn't feel great.