A Little Arrogance Can Get You A Lot Lost (11/22/2025)

Yesterday, I had agreed to meet Yingyee Herman on the UW-Madison campus for a podcast in her Fearless Catholic Women Series. She asked me to meet her at the college library and emailed the address of 600 N. Park. My husband and I headed into Madison. I directed him to the library and he dropped me off. When the time arrived and there was no sign of Yingyee, I texted her. It was then I found out that I was at the wrong library. I had ignored the address she’d sent believing as a UW-Madison alum that I knew where the library was.

Turns out, I was correct on the location of the UW-Memorial Library. Unbeknownst to me, there is also a College Library called the Helen C. White Hall. It is a block from UW-Memorial Library at...you guessed it…600 N. Park Street. If I had followed Yingyee’s directions instead of thinking I knew the right address, I’d have been at the right place at the right time.

I thought about my experience last night as I reflected on the day. It is not the first time in my life that I have disregarded what another has told me because I thought I knew already. The LORD loves to teach humility gently. And this was a day for a reminder lesson in listening and in not going off thinking I knew better.  While I was humbly admitting my error, my mind resurfaced other times when things went less smoothly than they should have because I didn’t really listen or because I thought I knew better. I contritely asked for mercy and for the gift of being more open to information I truly needed. Foolish is not synonymous with fearless. I admitted my mistake and prayed for wisdom as well as humility.

Sometimes we can fall into the trap of thinking we know best or more. It’s arrogance. Perhaps it’s only a minor case of it, but it is arrogant. And when we do, we get can get majorly lost. Over the years, one of the most frequent ways that this has happened to me was in growing my spiritual life. Those who had been on the journey longer would suggest a way, but I in my arrogance would think I knew better or would doubt that what the spiritual sage was telling me was entirely true.

 I learned the hard way that we all need prayer daily, we all need to learn of Christ through scripture daily, and that we all need to exercise love of others and love of Christ’s living body here on earth through community and service daily. Whenever I arrogantly thought I knew better or had an alternative route, I got terribly lost.

Christ is “the way and the truth and the life.” Let us promise that we will try daily to follow in His footsteps and not question what He tells us nor ignore what He puts before us because we think we know better.

Until tomorrow, let us all love well.