In his classic of Christian apologetics, Mere Christianity, author C. S. Lewis wrote the following: “Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next person… It is the comparison that makes you proud: the pleasure of being above the rest. Once the element of competition is gone, pride is gone.” While it is proper that we always strive to do and be our best, it is also important that no matter how much talent we may posses or how high our achievements may be, there is always a source of higher and greater attainment. That source may be another person or it may be God. Inevitably we are all subordinate to something. Excessive pride, or hubris has been considered a fatal character flaw and a cardinal sin from the beginning of time. That is why, as Lewis put it, as long as we are proud we cannot know God. A proud person is always looking down on things and people; and, of course, as long as you are looking down you cannot see Who triumphantly looms above you. The following ancient fable illustrates the downfall and disappointment that awaits us when we enshroud ourselves in excessive pride and vanity.
Arachne was a beautiful maiden who had wonderful skills in weaving and embroidery. The nymphs left their groves and fountains to gather round her loom. The naiads came from the rivers and the dryads from the trees, and never tired of watching her.
She took the wool as it came from the backs of the newly washed sheep and formed it into rolls. She separated it with her deft fingers and carded it until it looked as light and as soft as a cloud. She twirled the spindle in her skillful hands and wove the web. Often she embroidered it with her needle in beautiful, soft colors.
Arachne’s father was famed throughout the land for his skill in coloring. He dyed her wool in all the hues of the rainbow.
Her work was so wonderful that people said, “Surely Athena must have taught this maiden.” But Arachne proudly denied this. She could not bear to be thought of as a pupil even to the goddess of the loom.
“If Athena thinks she can weave better than I, let her try her skill with mine,” she said boastfully. “If I fail, I will pay the penalty.”
In vain her father told her that perhaps Athena, unseen, guided her hands. Arachne would not listen, and would thank no one for her gift, for vanity had turned her head. She said again, “Let Athena try her skill with mine if she dares.”
One day as she was boasting to the nymphs of the beauty of her work, an old woman appeared before her and advised her to accept her rare gift humbly. Arachne looked at the old woman angrily and said, “Keep your advice for others, old dame. I do not need it.”
But the old woman replied, “Listen to me. I have great age and much experience, and I have come to warn you. Until now, Athena has aided you, asking for no gratitude, but she can help you no more until you grow less selfish and vain. Above all, I advise you to ask forgiveness of Athena. Perhaps she may yet pardon your selfish pride. Challenge your fellow mortals, if you will, but do not, I beg of you, seek to compete with the goddess.
But Arachne replied, “Begone! I fear not Athena, no, nor anyone else. Nothing would please me so much as to weave with Athena, but she is afraid to weave with me.”
Then suddenly the old woman threw aside her cloak, and there before Arachne’s very eyes stood a tall, majestic, gray-eyed goddess, crowned with a golden helmet.
“Athena is here,” she said. Then the nymphs bent low in homage, but Arachne stood erect. She grew pale but gave no other sign of fear.
“Come, foolish girl, since you wish to try your skill with me,” said Athena, “let the contest begin.”
Both went quickly to work, and for hours their shuttles flew swiftly in and out. Athena used the sky for her loom, and in it she wove a picture too beautiful to describe. If you wish to know more about it, look to the western sky when the sun is setting.
She was still merciful, and at length she began a smaller web nearer to Arachne’s loom. In this she wove a warning, showing how other boastful mortals had failed when they dared to compete with the gods. She hoped that the girl would even yet repent her rashness. But Arachne refused this last chance to save herself. She would not lift her eyes from her own work.
Her weaving was so fine and beautiful that even Athena was forced to admire it. The figures upon it seemed ready to speak and to live, but into her web she had woven many of the faults and failings of the gods, and her work was full of spite.
When the task was finished, Arachne lifted her eyes to Athena’s work. Instantly she knew she had failed. Ashamed and miserable, she tried to hang herself in her own web, but Athena cried, “Stay, wretched and perverse girl. You shall not die. You shall live to do the work for which you are best fitted. You and your children shall be among the greatest spinners and weavers upon the earth. You shall be the mother of a great race, which shall be called spiders. Wherever humans shall see your web, they shall destroy it even as I destroy yours.” And as she spoke, the goddess with her shuttle tore the maiden’s wonderful web from top to bottom.
Then Athena touched Arachne’s forehead with her spindle thrice, and she became smaller and smaller, until she was scarcely larger than a fly.
And from that day to this Arachne and her family have been faithfully spinning and weaving, but they do their work so quietly and in such dark places that few people know what marvelous webs they weave. Some early morning, you may see their webs gleaming with dew, spread across the grass, or hanging between the branches of a tree.
For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and the one who humbles himself will be exalted. – Luke 18:14
Have an AWE-full Weekend!
William “Bill” Bacque