By now you’ve probably figured out that I’m doing a deep dive into Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount, particularly the Beatitudes, Matthew 5:3-10. The first two are “Blessed are the poor in spirit” and “Blessed are those who mourn.” These are tough words. They go against our human grain, but Jesus said these people are blessed. Consecrated. Sacred. Divinely favored.

And then there’s this one. “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.” Okay, I have questions. The definition of meek includes “soft, timid, weak, and passive,” but Jesus was none of those things when he drove the moneychangers out of temple! I’ve read another connotation, however. Meekness is “strength under control.” I love that.

But I’m no Greek scholar, so I’m not sure I fully understand. I think poet Rainer Maria Rilke was on to something when he wrote this. “Try to love the questions. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given to you because you would not be able to live them. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”

I need to live the question. I need to grow into the answer. But one thing is clear. Meekness’s opposites (arrogance, harshness, lack of self-control or submission to God’s will) are not on the Beatitudes list.