Florilegium and the Happiness of Humility

gathering beauty and being unoffendable

Hello! I hope you had a good weekend.

Last week we discussed what curiosity and humility are not, so this week let’s discuss a little bit about what they are.

Humility is…

You’ll be surprised by this one: relaxing. That’s not the first word I would’ve thought of, but I appreciate theologian Tim Keller’s take on it: “There’s nothing more relaxing than humility.”¹

It’s not thinking less of yourself, but thinking of yourself less. In other words, a humble person isn’t focused on their own insecurities because they’re enchanted elsewhere.

Have you met a person like that? When you have a conversation with them, they treat you as if you’re the most important and interesting person that could possibly be in the universe in that moment, that there’s nowhere they’d rather be than with you.

Don’t you love people like that? …If you’ve ever met such a rare gem of a person, that is. He wasn’t thinking about how he wants you to remember him, or she wasn’t focused on how frizzy her hair was that they. They weren’t busy wondering who they should talk to next. They were being self-forgetful and thinking about you.

Have you met someone who always seems to give you the benefit of the doubt? You say something where you totally put your foot in your mouth, but they still make you feel totally at ease, like they knew what you meant even though it all came out wrong? It’s such a delight to know people who aren’t easily offended, when they’re charitable towards others…towards you.

Nobody tells it better like Ted Lasso (quoting Walt Whitman): Be curious, not judgmental.

There’s something so appealing, and yes, relaxing, about living a life like that.

Florilegia (or a commonplace book)

“How to become humble” is probably not something that can be achieved in an article in this context. But here’s a practical way that we can all be better noticers of the beauty around us: taking note of them.

Tsh Oxenreider shared how some writers described their commonplace journals in the past: “florilegium.” It means “a gathering of flowers.” A bouquet. They simply noticed beautiful, interesting, or puzzling things in the world and jotted them down.

It doesn’t have to be organized. It doesn’t have to make sense to anyone other than you. If you’re writing page numbers, only number the pages on one side of the journal, and it’ll take half the time!

Here’s a table of contents I made for mine:

But it might just more sense for you to add to various ongoing pages in your phone’s Notes app, maybe with titles such as “Interesting People” or “Beautiful Moments.” That’s how I kept track of the list below.

Beautiful People

Here are some beautiful people I met on our recent road trip to Colorado (see Friday’s post on travel.)

• Erin, a thru-hiker who made sure to invite us to hangouts at the hostel and make us feel included.

• Lincoln, a little girl we passed by on the street who stopped right in front of my 4-year-old then said “You’re my age!” and gave her a big hug.

• Danny, a volunteer in a state park who spent twenty minutes giving us recommendations of the prettiest views in the area.

• Story, a Cajun server who made us feel like we’re good people (and fellow misfits) because we were from Tennessee.

• Freddy, an incredibly passionate—and spry—tour guide of a gold mill who invited us to “stump me with questions about anything here so I’ll stay humble.”

• The anonymous guy at a restaurant who gave us a $100 bill just to bless us since we have so many kids.

• Spencer and Katelyn, random strangers who picked us up in their all-terrain vehicle (and brought us back to our car) so we wouldn’t have to hike as many miles.

• Joyvana, who worked long hours and practically ran the hotel we stayed at even though she wasn’t an owner; she just wanted to see it revitalized.

• Pedro and Eliana, young bartenders from Dallas who were so kind to our kids on the train and taught us that U-Hauls are cheaper than rental cars when traveling.

Meeting shop owners is really nice, too. At a little store that’s named something like Tina’s Treats, you could ask the helpful woman at the counter if she is Tina. It’s genuinely an honor to meet the very person who is making big risks to live their dream. (It’s also an honor to support their business and give them a great Google review.)

However, we must be careful not to objectify people or treat them like interesting specimens. That’s when curiosity can become a nosy thing, or an unkind thing. Flattery isn’t the goal here, either.

But I truly think that we can learn something from every single human being, because everybody has a different story and perspective. Sometimes maybe the biggest lesson you need to learn from a hurtful person is what not to do.

But the world is a massively knowledgeable teacher, isn’t it? There’s so much to learn, and so many wonderful people to learn from.

I hope you and I get to treasure a bouquet of beautiful people and moments this week! I hope that we are interesting people who others will want to remember with gratitude.
May we truly listen to people.
May we have hearts of self-forgetfulness.
And may we all grow a little more enchanted with things more interesting than our own insecurities this week. ❤️

Warmly,

Hope from Family Scripts

1. Keller is quoted as saying this in a sermon and he’s reiterated similar points on Twitter.

Timothy Keller @timkellernyc

True humility is a relaxing endeavor because it shifts focus from thinking less of oneself, to instead thinking of oneself less-freeing us from self promotion.