Humbility

Humbility (n.) - The act of humbling oneself the way God intended us to be humble.
Humbleness (n.) - Humbling oneself
Humbilosity (n.) - Fake humbleness
Humbiliousness (n.) - Extreme humbilosity

I have struggled with humbling myself in my life. I am immensely proud of the gifts that God has given me and I love to use them, however, humbilosity and humbiliousness come easier to me than humbility.

I think that the reason for this is the fact that in my mind to be proud of one's accomplishments is to not have humbility so I easily oscillate between opposite extremes: pride and humbiliousness. God, through baseball, has taught me a valuable lesson via a man I like to call my hero, Casey Blake.

Casey Blake puttered around the minors for many many years finally getting called up to the Indians for good in 2004. In 2005 he sucked, flat out. If the game was on the line, you might as well start quoting "Casey At The Bat" where the Mighty Casey strikes out with the bases loaded in the bottom of the 9th with 2 out. In 2006 he busted out and became my hero after I watched him destroy the Orioles singlehandedly as I lay in the ER. Casey Blake, the phoenix, taught me that it was possible to rise from the ashes.

This year Casey hit 2 walk off home runs in 4 days. Walk off means that once he hit it, the game was over, Indians win. The baseball equivalent of the Hail Mary. After he hit his second, he rounded the bases triumphantly pumping his fist and "woo hoo"ing his way around the bases. A happy man who had just defeated the rival Tigers in the 11th inning.

The next day he apologized to the Tigers for his display saying that he did not mean to show them up or to disrespect their team with his actions. Casey was proud of his actions and celebrated accordingly but did not forget that there were people around him who may have taken offense to his reaction. Jim Leyland, the Tigers' manager, said that the apology was unnecessary because of the quality of Casey's character and the fact that he was celebrating a joyous occasion. Casey Blake, the man, taught me about humbility.

Humbility is the act of being proud of accomplishments but not gloating about them in a way that may make others feel inferior. In other words, if your boasting runs roughshod over other's accomplishments then it is not good, because you are telling God that His gifts to another are worthless. On the other hand, if your humble feelings detract from the value of the accomplishments God has allowed you to make, you are effectily telling Him that His gifts to you are worthless.

The world appreciates humbiliousness, God is after humbility.