Learning Humility

A Year of Searching for a Vanishing Virtue

By: Richard J. Foster

Narrated by: Richard J. Foster

Length: 6 hrs and 57 mins

Publisher's summary

In a society where raging narcissism dominates the moral landscape, the virtue of humility is often dismissed as irrelevant. Not only is humility vanishing from contemporary culture, but we are also witnessing how destructive a lack of humility has become among our churches and ministry leaders. And yet, Richard Foster, the founder of Renovare, insists that humility is central to the journey toward character formation and spiritual transformation. For this reason he decided to spend a year studying the virtue of humility.

Using the Lakota calendar as a framework, Foster provides us with a look into the insights he gathered from sources ranging from Native American culture to Julian of Norwich to Scripture to personal friends. By engaging with both the spiritual classics and Foster's own experiences, Learning Humility provides profound insight into what humility can look like in our current cultural climate.

Join Richard Foster on the journey toward a life of humility, which he says leads us into "freedom, joy, and holy hilarity."

©2022 Richard J. Foster, LLC (P)2022 eChristian

Life changing

I am very thankful for all Richard Foster has done for the Christian Community and feel like I'm getting to know him. I've watched so many YouTube videos of Mr. Foster and Dallas Willard and find the help needed to change.

Quite different in feel from his other books

Yesterday I recommended Learning Humility to someone that I meet with for spiritual direction. He was familiar with Richard Foster and his other books, but the first comment to my talking about Learning Humility as a new book was that he didn't know that Richard Foster was still alive. He is still alive, and he and his wife live independently in rural Colorado. But Richard Foster is in his early 80s and has not published a new book in over a decade.

I have read most of Richard Foster's books, and Learning Humility is quite different. Generally, the other books are exploring spiritual formation concepts and are in a teaching mode. Learning Humility was very much an edited journal. Many sections ended with a variation of "I will have to think about that for a while."

I listened to this as an audiobook, and while I think that Foster narrated it well and that his voice really helped bring out the emotion and thought of the book, this is probably a book that either needs to be read a few times or it would be better to be read in print. Again, that isn't because the narration is bad (a different narrator would be worse) but because the prose is written in a way that invites the reader to sit with his words and go back and reread. Audiobooks just keep going. That is one reason I like them for some types of books. But other books, books that are more poetic in style or that are meant to be meditated on, need print.

Richard Foster discovered, around 20 years ago, that his paternal grandmother, who died before he was born, was Ojibwa. Since that time, he has been exploring Native American history and thought. To continue that exploration, he frames his journal using the Lakota calendar. This gives him 13 moons to explore the Lakota values corresponding to the calendar.

I think Foster handles this well. He is not claiming to be a member of a Native American tribe or that he has special insight into Native American culture. He is describing what he is learning and cites where he is learning it from. There is a fine line between postively honoring a culture that is not your own and humbly using the cross-cultural differences to inform your own culture and negatively appropriating another culture for your own purposes. I think he mostly stays on the right side of that line. Cross-cultural exploration is one of the best methods to help understand our culture. The way we understand the water we are swimming in is to grapple with other cultures and their similarities and differences.

Each chapter title is a rough translation of the Lakota names for the months. And each chapter summarizes his thoughts by the week on what he is learning about himself and the concept of humility. He allows himself to explore various authors and writings about humility in addition to a monthly Lakota cultural value. He pays attention to the seasons and what is happening in the world around him. Many thoughts are just a few lines, and some go on a page or two, but it is intentionally more disjointed than straight narrative teaching.

The point here is that he is not teaching; he is exploring ideas and his own values and ideas regarding his own spiritual formation. He may be in his early 80s and mostly retired. But he still is seeking to grow in his relationship with God.

I regularly listen to the two podcasts that Richard Foster's son Nathan hosts, the Renovaré podcast and the Friends in Formation podcast. Richard used to be on the Renovare podcast pretty regularly but has retired from that. But the slow, easy voice that Nathan has as he discusses books and ideas and spiritual formation with the guests has been learned from his father. It is unhurried. And the book Learning Humility is not racing to get anywhere in particular. It is unhurried as well.

Great insights on an important topic

Loved the narration by the author. Made me feel as if I was taking the journey alongside him.

Wonderful nuggets of insight buried

Generally I liked the book and glad I read it but it was a bit slow and difficult to stay with for the duration.

Disappointed

Richard Foster’s book “The Celebration of Discipline” is one of the best books ever written besides the Bible, but this book I feel was a waste of time; so much of it was pulled from the Bible itself that I feel like I just need to go and read the Bible more. I suggest reading the Bible instead and although it’s nice to hear the authors voice, I did not want to hear it for the duration of this title. I feel like a different speaker would’ve given it a little more oomph. I wish that Richard Foster was my father or grandpa, but this book was not very beneficial to me, but I do love Richard!