{"id":1386,"date":"2019-12-30T20:03:11","date_gmt":"2019-12-31T01:03:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/connietuttle.com\/blog\/?p=1386"},"modified":"2019-12-30T20:03:11","modified_gmt":"2019-12-31T01:03:11","slug":"sometimes-i-have-to-smile-a-lesson-in-humility","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/connietuttle.com\/blog\/sometimes-i-have-to-smile-a-lesson-in-humility\/","title":{"rendered":"Sometimes I have to smile: a lesson in humility"},"content":{"rendered":"

I met an author I admire this summer. I have bought and read many of her books. I even took a class from her years ago. She’s smart and insightful. In the course of the conversation I shared with her that my book had been nominated for an award and she asked after my book. I shared the title,\u00a0A Gracious Heresy: the Queer Calling of an Unlikely Prophet.
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

“Who’s the prophet?” she asked.<\/p>\n

“Me.” I answered sheepishly \u00a0and was promptly dismissed with a not-too-subtle eye roll.<\/p>\n

Damm. Here’s the thing. I don’t call myself a prophet out of any sense of:
\n1- success;
\n2- \u00a0exceptional job done, or
\n3- any claim of spiritual insightfulness.<\/p>\n

Maybe I shouldn’t have included that prophet thing in the subtitle.
\nBut it really is a part of my story of speaking truth to power, as they say. I claim it from an educated view of prophetic speech that is not in any way about the one speaking. \u00a0Still, it was hard to be taken down a notch.<\/p>\n

So let me share a few words from my book to clarify:<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n

“A prophet? Are you kidding me? Thirty years ago I would have been right there with you. Believe me, I would never have called myself a prophet. Prophets are special. I am not. They have a direct line to God and the go- ahead and where-with-all to do all kinds of miraculous things. I do not. They rail at people for being idiots. Well, sometimes. They declare impend- ing doom. The most I can claim about impending doom is that I\u2019m often scared. Prophets occasionally foretell the future. Not me. They are righteous in the extreme and above the fray and trials of this messy business we call life. Again, not me. Not in any lifetime. Not on any planet.
\nBoy, was I wrong. In seminary I learned just how wrong I was. I dis- covered that prophets are wonderfully flawed and chaotic people. Just like me. Folks often thought they were crazy. True here. Eventually I got to know the prophets as chums who spoke passionately and acted hyperbolically. I identified. I am not above the bedlam of life. I am neither a soothsayer who predicts the future nor a miracle worker. I am not particularly righteous, though I have been known to be self-righteous. To be honest I am a flock of flaws, surrounded by a majesty of misunderstandings, hobbled together with an impediment of imperfections. I am not special in any way to anyone except, maybe, to my mom and dad and daughter. I don\u2019t have a direct line to God and when the party line is open, I often don\u2019t hear\u2014or more truth- fully, don\u2019t listen\u2014to what God is saying. I am strong willed and sometimes lazy. I get stuff wrong. A lot.”<\/p>\n

So when I’m taken down a notch I need to remember to smile. Someone once told me my spiritual gift was humility. If that is true then it is only when I smile at myself.
\nOnly when I smile.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I met an author I admire this summer. I have bought and read many of her books. I even took a class from her years ago. She’s smart and insightful. In the course of the conversation I shared with her that my book had been nominated for an award and she asked after my book. … Continue reading Sometimes I have to smile: a lesson in humility<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6,13],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/connietuttle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1386"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/connietuttle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/connietuttle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/connietuttle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/connietuttle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1386"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/connietuttle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1386\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1388,"href":"https:\/\/connietuttle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1386\/revisions\/1388"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/connietuttle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/connietuttle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/connietuttle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}