Please accept this gift... (video)

  I don't live in a city, so I don't see homeless people as readily as those who live in the city do.  But, in a recent discussion with my parents' neighbor, and remember this is in an incredibly small town in Northern Michigan, I came to find out that there is a large number of kids of the public school who are homeless.  Now, in a town of less than 1300 people, homelessness should not happen!  But, it's all over, and it will simply blow your mind.  It did mine.
  But, this post isn't about homelessness.    It's about humility, and this video shows the point so very well.  Humility is the art of allowing your heart to be open.  To being willing to see that there is more to the rainbow in front of us than the very strict color we see, the definition we declare, or the principles to which we adhere.
  I have known some who are very staunchly religious, and others who are very staunchly against religion.  Personally, I think both are very miserable people.  I find that I have no idea what is after death, what comes after we fade, and can only hope that some of the very best ideas of the religions of man are somehow true.  Robin Williams did a movie in 1988 about the things that come to us after death called "What Dreams May Come".  It seemed to bomb, mostly I think because of the fact that it made the audience think and see things differently.  In fact, I think it really exemplified a humble person in Robin Williams' character.  And, before you ask me how we got on this side of the topic, I think a great many of the very religious people, specifically what I call "Bible Thumpers" and Sister Betterthanyou, have so seriously missed the concept of humility and would be aghast at what Jesus Christ would say in this incidence.
  One of my larger struggles in life is that I all too often close myself to others.  I know this is going to come as a surprise... ahem, cough.... but people who have hurt often find it far better for them to build a wall around that hurt.  On occasion, we may show off the hurt, sort of a display window in the wall, but make no mistake I keep that wall there.  I keep that hurt safe.  And, as a result, I foster that cancer in the heart of my being, protecting it and moving my life around it.
Being so distracted by this, it is then a much easier thing to find that which works for me and declare it "right".  Being "right" allows me to stand a bit higher despite the shadow of that walled cancerous hurt.  I get to focus on the little things, on being right about the small things... I think someone referred it as "moving the deck chairs on the Titanic"; it won't really accomplish anything, but it all looks better now, and in all of that I miss the idea of humility because I am so caught up in being "right" in whatever I can manage.
  So, as I've said, humility is the true message of this video, I think.  As a practice, it is an art, a confusion of focus and unfocused being.  It is the art of standing in the rain for no other reason than to feel the rain upon you, and not being proud of yourself for being willing to feel the rain.  Humility is the art of being you, being an experiencing human in whatever environment we find ourself, and allowing ourself to be free in that environment.