Green with Humility? by Susan Caldwell

Hedonistic cultures increase the need for all those who can hide their disfigurements and ill wanted actions to desperately to do so. I once read a book where the main character was green. Being green on the outside would make it difficult for anyone to live undetected most especially in a community that aspired to outward beauty and social charm. The make believe country in which this green individual lives is such a place. The ironic twist was that although labeled as “wicked”, undesirable and unattractive when measured against her cultures’ definition of good, she would prove to be more honest and gallant than those around her whose physical beauty and social graces were publicly esteemed.

I like to think of being green, as being real. And being real to me is being fully human. That means accepting my disfigurements and taking responsibility for my moral imperfections. Yet, I know green is not the desired look in our society, either. The constant struggle is not to succumb to my culturally trained instinct of hiding my true nature in the hope of appearing to achieve our cultures definition of good, while still aiming for a higher moral standard and the eternal true good.

This dilemma carries over and seems most apparent, as I look at my spiritual journey. Although aspiring to live by what is good and true is the goal, no person that I know of has yet to meet the standard of perfection. (And here ironically, perfection really does mean not being green.) Therefore guaranteeing any attempt at achieving godliness will bring failure because I am green. The truth is no one can follow a belief system that calls him or her to emulate a perfect standard.

It is here that the Savior enters. He is the Truth, the Perfect Standard, and the One I am to emulate and bringing with him the gift of grace. “It is by grace you have been saved.” And now the real tension begins. What I really want grace to be is a new standard of perfection using me as the measure. But that is not what is being offered. I used to think grace was what covered my shortcomings; or to keep with the analogy of being green, grace was camouflage. Okay, well if not that then maybe grace was what would eventually change me or would help me to appear less green by diluting my color little by little. Since I am still as green as ever, that’s not proving to be true.

Perhaps then what grace does is set us free, free to keep aiming at truth all of our green lives regardless of the outcome. And grace must have truth as its standard or it is valueless. Truth and grace are often seen (and treated) as mutually exclusive. Maybe there were meant to be inseparable. It isn’t so much that they need each other, as it is they together produce the end result we are all able to achieve.

I am left then with this dilemma. When I choose this standard of truth and grace by which to measure my life, what then is the outcome of my efforts? Humility.