Overcoming Ambition: Embracing Childlike Humility and Love
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1. "Ambition can be a good, healthy thing, but if it's in excess, it can become a vice. And I think with the age of social media that we're in, I think with the pressure within the suburbs and in the city, we're seeing the vice of ambition and the sickness that's caused from it, the sickness. Book of James puts it rather bluntly. We heard it in our second reading, the very first verse, we're in chapter three, verse 16. He says, where selfish ambition exists, there is disorder and every kind of foul practice. Where there's the vice of ambition within the soul, there will be a trail eventually that leads to disorder. The soul will become disordered. Community will become disordered. Society, foul practice within the soul." [03:40] (65 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)
2. "As parents, we sometimes think our role is to help fuel and support our kids' ambition. But in a hyper competitive culture in which we find ourselves in, kids sometimes need the opposite. They need the adults in their lives to prevent them from sacrificing their mind. They need the adults in their lives to prevent them from sacrificing their minds and bodies on the altar of achievement. And to teach them how to build the kind of life, they won't need substances to escape. One more, she says, what emerged from my research hit me like an ice bath. Our kids are absorbing the idea that their worth is contingent on their performance, their GPA, the number of social media followers they have, the college they get into, not for who they are deep at their core. They feel they only matter to the adults in their lives, their peers, the larger community. If they are successful, ambition can be a good thing." [06:42] (68 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)
3. "Luckily, with the sickness, there's a medicine. We see it rather quickly when Jesus sniffs it out. You have the disciples, that are walking along the way. They get there. Jesus noticed that they were talking amongst each other and say, hey, what were you talking about? We were talking about who's the greatest among us. Jesus sniffs out the ego there. He sniffs out that there's some vice of ambition going on. The very next thing he does is he takes a little child and places it in their midst, and he puts his arm around it. Jesus uses children numerous times in the scriptures of today. He says, when you receive this child, you receive me. Other places, he says, unless you become like this child, you can't inherit the kingdom of heaven." [08:44] (59 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)
4. "There's one child or quality in a child that's increasingly on display for me, I think, on Mondays when I go home and I'm with my twin sister's kids, my nephews, who's four years old right now, two-year-old, and a seven-month-old. There's a lot of crying, a lot of tears, and most of the tears, I'm convinced, in the seven-month-old, two-year-old, and the four-year-old, the tears are their desire. They're their desire just to be loved, whether it's they just got hit on the head, but they want to be known, they want to be loved, they want to be held. A child's ability to recognize their own desire to receive love and to be loved, and that it's not contingent on success or anything else." [09:50] (55 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)
5. "Can you see that you, you and I are no different than Micah? That our deepest need is to hear the father say, I love you, daughter. I love you, son. I see you. I recognize you. You don't have to be the greatest. You don't have to be the greatest. Let me put my arms around you. See, that's what, that's what heals the vice of ambition. That most of us have little corners in our hearts that have, for recognition and status and honor. What those spots ultimately are is us making that move of dad, I love you. Do you love me?" [12:20] (54 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)
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2. "As parents, we sometimes think our role is to help fuel and support our kids' ambition. But in a hyper competitive culture in which we find ourselves in, kids sometimes need the opposite. They need the adults in their lives to prevent them from sacrificing their mind. They need the adults in their lives to prevent them from sacrificing their minds and bodies on the altar of achievement. And to teach them how to build the kind of life, they won't need substances to escape. One more, she says, what emerged from my research hit me like an ice bath. Our kids are absorbing the idea that their worth is contingent on their performance, their GPA, the number of social media followers they have, the college they get into, not for who they are deep at their core. They feel they only matter to the adults in their lives, their peers, the larger community. If they are successful, ambition can be a good thing." [06:42] (68 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)
3. "Luckily, with the sickness, there's a medicine. We see it rather quickly when Jesus sniffs it out. You have the disciples, that are walking along the way. They get there. Jesus noticed that they were talking amongst each other and say, hey, what were you talking about? We were talking about who's the greatest among us. Jesus sniffs out the ego there. He sniffs out that there's some vice of ambition going on. The very next thing he does is he takes a little child and places it in their midst, and he puts his arm around it. Jesus uses children numerous times in the scriptures of today. He says, when you receive this child, you receive me. Other places, he says, unless you become like this child, you can't inherit the kingdom of heaven." [08:44] (59 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)
4. "There's one child or quality in a child that's increasingly on display for me, I think, on Mondays when I go home and I'm with my twin sister's kids, my nephews, who's four years old right now, two-year-old, and a seven-month-old. There's a lot of crying, a lot of tears, and most of the tears, I'm convinced, in the seven-month-old, two-year-old, and the four-year-old, the tears are their desire. They're their desire just to be loved, whether it's they just got hit on the head, but they want to be known, they want to be loved, they want to be held. A child's ability to recognize their own desire to receive love and to be loved, and that it's not contingent on success or anything else." [09:50] (55 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)
5. "Can you see that you, you and I are no different than Micah? That our deepest need is to hear the father say, I love you, daughter. I love you, son. I see you. I recognize you. You don't have to be the greatest. You don't have to be the greatest. Let me put my arms around you. See, that's what, that's what heals the vice of ambition. That most of us have little corners in our hearts that have, for recognition and status and honor. What those spots ultimately are is us making that move of dad, I love you. Do you love me?" [12:20] (54 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)
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