In a world where there is no humility, there can be no humanity, and God remains invisible.

The word humanity derives from the same Indo-European origin as the word humility. Humanity is the thing most true about each of us. We are all human. Before nationalities, before politics, before religion, philosophy, or even myth, there was humanity. Humanity, human-ness, is the thing from which all these other things proceed. Underneath the things that separate us, the learned things of division, there is the thing that binds us together, the innate thing of unity.

But humanity is not a given. It exists only as seeds until we decide to make it happen, until we decide to grow it, to spread it around and remove the obstacles to its fertility. So humanity is our most basic characteristic, but without proper care, it dies. A world where humanity is dead is monstrous and cannot be managed. We are bound together by our humanity, for good or ill.

The seeds of humanity are the same for us all and by cultivating these seeds we can make a world that prospers filled with individuals who thrive. It only works when each person, each human, propagates humanity by tending the seeds in their own day to day. These seeds draw life from the soil of our being, the humus, humility, which is irrigated in the deepest, unseen strata by the Divine.

Compassion and forgiveness are the seeds. The general act of planting them is called love. These seeds lie dormant until we cultivate the soil in which they grow, humility, our most basic state. If we do that, humanity is the harvest. This harvest nourishes a flourishing world of creativity, prosperity, communication, mutual benefit.

By cultivating humility we begin to contend with the grubs and nettles that stifle humanity: our lack of compassion, our lack of forgiveness. In the absence of humanity, fear and judgment grow instead. These things hinder fullness of life, dream building, satisfying relationships, a prosperous world. But the interesting thing about the seeds of humanity is that by planting them, we transform the soil in which they are planted -- namely ourselves and therefore the world. The grubs and nettles of fear and judgment find no nourishment in tilled humility sown with compassion and forgiveness. They whither and disappear, leaving room for humanity to take root and grow.

The alternative is the world where the seeds of humanity are not planted, the soil of humility not tilled. In that world we are cut off from that deepest strata of our being, the layer where the Divine first mingles with us, first begins to reveal itself to us by giving us the being through which we perceive it. In a world where there is no humility, there can be no humanity, and God remains invisible.

Ever forward.

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