The other day I saw a news photo of Pope Francis washing and kissing the feet of several Muslim refugees from the Middle East. As a Quaker, I had never seen this Maundy Thursday ritual performed. Having priests wash the feet of parishioners is the sort of high-church tradition the seventeenth-century Quakers rejected as obscuring the pure light and direct experience of God.
Nonetheless, I found the image of the 79-year-old pope and the migrants seated above him strangely moving. Washing a stranger’s gritty, smelly, earth-bound feet is a way of saying “let me be your servant,” an expression of deep humility. It was such a relief – after a difficult week of ISIS attacks in Belgium and political grandstanding about migrants – to see a world leader bend his knee to these fellow humans.
While we all understand the need to be on guard for terrorists trying to cross our borders, we also need to remember the power of humility in trying times. Unfortunately, humility is not a trait that gets much respect these days, particularly not in the heat of our current political season. Candidates trumpet their views as if they have the only answers, and followers seem especially inflamed and righteous. It makes me long for middle ground, a place where all of us who want the best for our country and the larger world could come together and listen with open hearts.
As the English Quaker Joseph Jon Gurney said in the early 19th century: “When the pride of the heart is laid low, when the activity of human reasoning is quieted, when the soul is reduced to a state of silent subjection in the presence of its Creator, then this ‘still small voice’ intelligibly heard, and the word of the Lord, as it is inwardly revealed to us, becomes a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our paths.”
It takes humility to accept that we don’t always know what’s right or how to respond in a difficult situation. Pride and posturing will not help us understand why emigrants have left their homes or what they are seeking, but perhaps humility will. Whether a flood of migrants is part of God’s plan or not, I cannot say. But it’s an opportunity to practice listening humbly to others, and to God. We will need to understand each other better to make progress in this chaotic world.
Wendy Swallow, Clerk of Reno Friends Meeting
email: wswallow54 (at) gmail.com
The opinions expressed above are not necessarily those of Reno Friends Meeting.