Both Oars In The significance of insignificance

Jan 7, 2011

Nature may abhor a vacuum, but man hates insignificance even more. Poverty, failure, defeat are nothing compared to insignificance. History contains the names of several famous figures who were at one point poor or who failed, or were beaten, but none who were not seen as significant. History also contains stories of people who have fallen hard as a result of desperate acts to avoid becoming insignificant.

Society puts a lot of importance in significance, evidenced by the plethora of lists created by the media to recognize significance even when it may be fleeting. There is Fortune’s Five Hundred and Forbes’s annual list of the richest people of the world. We have Time’s 100 Most Influential People and People magazine’s list of the most beautiful people. The Wall Street Journal has the list of the top paid CEOs. There is a Who’s Who for just about any category of profession or academia.

Yet often it is the acceptance of insignificance that has created some of history’s most significant figures. I was recently struck by this irony while watching for the third time the wonderful HBO series “John Adams”. This is one series that is worth watching annually. The script is expertly adapted from David McCullough’s Pulitzer Prize winning book on Adams, which is based primarily on his personal letters to his wife and Thomas Jefferson.    

Before serving as our nation’s second president and after playing a very significant role as one of our nation’s founders, John Adams spent two un-glorious terms as George Washington’s vice president. He wrote in a letter to his wife, “My country has contrived for me the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived.” However, had he not accepted to serve in this insignificant role, he may never have become president, nor would have his son for that matter.

Mother Teresa also comes to mind. She left her work teaching very bright students to focus her life on caring for the most insignificant in society’s eyes. She did not take time to study to become a doctor or a community activist in order to help the poor. She purposely chose the simplest and most immediate path: love.

For years, people questioned her choice and her insistence that the sisters who join the order do the same. Today, she is the most recognized icon for authentic service. Her adherence to insignificance is what makes her witness so significant.  

Mother Teresa was not the first to decide to take the insignificant path. St. Francis chose a similar route. He also insisted his followers adhere to simplicity and shun education. He felt the poor did not have need of learned men, but men ready to join with them in solidarity. He wanted his followers to not only help the poor, but enter into their life. By changing poverty into simplicity, he made the insignificance of his actions significant enough to be recounted nearly a thousand years later.  

One could claim that accepting or pursuing insignificance is merely a form of humility. However, that would be a mistake. McCullough does not present Adams as a humble man. In fact, his wife seems to always be reminding him to not succumb to vanity. I am not so sure that Mother Teresa and St. Francis were all that humble either. Rather, they share with Adams a certain type of rare stubbornness that suggests something other than simple humility was at work in their character as well.

Certainly, humility is a virtue we should all practice. However, I believe what allowed John Adams, Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta and St. Francis to accept insignificance was their devotion to service. More than humility, they had singleness of mind to stay the course no matter how insignificant the world regarded their actions or roles. In the end, they defeated our fallen nature’s corrosive concern for significance by maintaining a resolve to serve.

Personally, I find this a challenge and a comfort. After all, if we are really about service, there is little time left over to consider if what we are doing is significant.

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