I was recently sitting at a hospital waiting room. A security guard walking across the room stopped and sparked up a conversation with me. Our brief exchange progressed quickly and covered many topics. He told me how children are like biscuits, they can be molded into whatever shape their parents and environment molds them into. He told me about his family in South Carolina and how the last shall be first, and the first shall be last.
About halfway through our conversation he shared some wisdom his mother would always say, “those who think they know everything know nothing and those who want everything have nothing.” It became clear to me from our discussing the recent events in Charleston where a policeman killed a man, that this security guard had been a police officer in the past. What did not become so clear, but it would not surprise me if it were true, was if he was also a pastor.
I am not sure why he began chatting with me, I was not wearing my clerics, but the bit of wisdom that so beautifully summarizes pride and greed struck a chord in me. Pride is the inordinate confidence or excessive esteem of one’s abilities, making a person think he is the source of his own greatness and achievement. Those who think they know everything feel invincible and self-made. They tend to be arrogant and dismissive of others. The remedy to heal pride is humility, the virtue that recognizes one’s own faults and total dependence on God. Being humble does not require becoming a doormat where everyone is welcome to step all over, but rather humility is recognizing the truth that “I do not know everything and cannot do everything” and to be at peace.
Greed is the inordinate desire for material possessions. Those who want everything are always left unhappy and frustrated because their desire will never be satisfied. The remedy to heal greed is generosity, the virtue by which one gives without expecting anything in return. Generosity not only includes financial giving, but the giving of one’s self to others with Jesus Christ as an example of someone who gave himself up freely on the cross. Generosity is recognizing that it is by giving that we receive.
You never know who you will meet throughout the day. You never know what insight, wisdom or idea may emerge from dialoguing with a complete stranger. We must be attentive to our surroundings, open to engage others, so that by giving of our time and attention the Holy Spirit may give us something to munch on and meditate.
Written for The Southern Cross
Picture taken in Puno, Peru at Plaza Pino
Pictures are mine, all rights reserved.
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