Learning Humility

Summary: Based on journal entries, Richard Foster explores the concept of humility in the Christian life.

Yesterday I recommended Learning Humility to someone that I meet with for spiritual direction. He was familiar with Richard Foster and his other books, but the first comment to my talking about Learning Humility as a new book was that he didn't know that Richard Foster was still alive. He is still alive, and he and his wife live independently in rural Colorado. But Richard Foster is in his early 80s and has not published a new book in over a decade.

I have read most of Richard Foster's books, and Learning Humility is quite different. Generally, the other books are exploring spiritual formation concepts and are in a teaching mode. Learning Humility was very much an edited journal. Many sections ended with a variation of “I will have to think about that for a while.”

I listened to this as an audiobook, and while I think that Foster narrated it well and that his voice really helped bring out the emotion and thought of the book, this is probably a book that either needs to be read a few times or it would be better to be read in print. Again, that isn't because the narration is bad (a different narrator would be worse) but because the prose is written in a way that invites the reader to sit with his words and go back and reread. Audiobooks just keep going. That is one reason I like them for some types of books. But other books, books that are more poetic in style or that are meant to be meditated on, need print.

Richard Foster discovered, around 20 years ago, that his paternal grandmother, who died before he was born, was Ojibwa. Since that time, he has been exploring Native American history and thought. To continue that exploration, he frames his journal using the Lakota calendar. This gives him 13 moons to explore the Lakota values corresponding to the calendar.

I think Foster handles this well. He is not claiming to be a member of a Native American tribe or that he has special insight into Native American culture. He is describing what he is learning and cites where he is learning it from. There is a fine line between postively honoring a culture that is not your own and humbly using the cross-cultural differences to inform your own culture and negatively appropriating another culture for your own purposes. I think he mostly stays on the right side of that line. Cross-cultural exploration is one of the best methods to help understand our culture. The way we understand the water we are swimming in is to grapple with other cultures and their similarities and differences.

Each chapter title is a rough translation of the Lakota names for the months. And each chapter summarizes his thoughts by the week on what he is learning about himself and the concept of humility. He allows himself to explore various authors and writings about humility in addition to a monthly Lakota cultural value. He pays attention to the seasons and what is happening in the world around him. Many thoughts are just a few lines, and some go on a page or two, but it is intentionally more disjointed than straight narrative teaching.

The point here is that he is not teaching; he is exploring ideas and his own values and ideas regarding his own spiritual formation. He may be in his early 80s and mostly retired. But he still is seeking to grow in his relationship with God.

I regularly listen to the two podcasts that Richard Foster's son Nathan hosts, the Renovaré podcast and the Friends in Formation podcast. Richard used to be on the Renovare podcast pretty regularly but has retired from that. But the slow, easy voice that Nathan has as he discusses books and ideas and spiritual formation with the guests has been learned from his father. It is unhurried. And the book Learning Humility is not racing to get anywhere in particular. It is unhurried as well.