Humble Pie

When I was growing up, I thought the phrase, "humble pie", sounded really awful. Like something I never wanted to taste. Right up there with pie made of four and twenty blackbirds. Now? Well, now I still don't really like the thought, but I have lived long enough to understand humility a little better. It doesn't mean feeling inferior, or bowing and scraping. It means understanding I am no better, and no worse, than anyone else. It is the truth about my place in creation.
I have been working full speed ahead on some writing projects, pushing, pushing them in hopes that an enlightened publisher will see their worth and help me launch them into the cosmos. And that is a good thing. Unless I lose sight of the truth. Unless I start to take my writing, and my life, for granted. Unless I forget that I am blessed beyond measure with the chance to sit and write at my leisure. If I forget to be grateful and begin to think I am in control of what happens when I hit the "send" button, or put stamps on my self addressed stamped envelope, then I am needing a little ego adjustment. And humble pie is on the menu.  It must be nutritious, because it surely isn't tasty!
I had two projects that were looking really promising. In fact, I had mentally decided they were in the bag. So when I got rejections, it was unnerving. I did a tail spin onto the other side of humility which is also a lie. I worried that I really don't have anything of worth to contribute. That I should just give up, and why did I think I could write to begin with! But that is not the flavor that my creator intended for humble pie. That thinking is every bit as self absorbed as egotism, every bit as self focused. Self pity and self doubt both begin with "self".
So, this morning I am sitting at my laptop desk in a beautiful cabin in New Mexico that Bob and I were blessed to help build. I am reminded of the truth about my life. That every good thing has been given to me, and I am blinded by smallness if I forget to live in gratitude. Writing from that place, from the sure and certain knowledge that I am loved, is my privilege. I am starting fresh today, chalking up the rejections as lessons to be learned. Hopeful that opening my mind to the blessings of the day will set my fingers on a good path. A path of gratitude for everything, including humble pie.