For me, the worst part about trying to find a gainful employment in academia and failing (besides not having money) is the constant feeling of humiliation and degradation. I have sent out packet after packet of tailor-written cover letters, CVs, and letters of recommendation (more on this in a moment) and received nothing in reply. Even what appeared to be "sure things" have evaporated for one reason or another.
In the beginning, applying for jobs feels like a positive movement. You are attempting to step out of the world of the student and into the world of the workplace. You write your letters cheerfully and rush to the post office to send them off. After numerous rejections, it just begins to feel like you're begging: "Please take me! I can't stand to be asked if I've found a job one more time!" Multiply this by 100 when you've given up on a tenure track position for the year and are cold-e-mailing various department chairs for an adjunct position. "Please, just give me something! I don't care if it's minimum wage. It's coming down to self-respect at this point!"
Now that I've earned my PhD, the feeling of humiliation has only grown more acute, since it brings with it pride (sometimes measured and thoughtful, sometimes absolutely vicious): "Why wouldn't they hire me? I'm fracking brilliant!"
One of the worst parts of all of this is asking professors for letters of recommendation: "No, Prof. X, still nothing yet. Would you mind writing me yet another letter? I might have a chance with this one, really. I hate to keep asking you. I know you're in the middle of teaching two classes and writing a book and three articles, and you're writing letters for five other people, but what else can I do?" It's truly an awful feeling. I don't recommend it.
In all this, I've had to rely on two things: 1. that the winds of divine Providence are pushing me somewhere, and I just need to stay in the boat, and 2. (the main theme of this post) that my humiliation is but a tiny participation in the life of Christ, "who humbled Himself to share in our humanity."
Christ's humbling and humiliation take two major forms that are part of the same kenotic movement. As St. Paul tells us in his letter to the Philippians: "[Jesus], though he was in the form of God, did not deem equality with God something to be grasped. Rather, he emptied Himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness, and found in human appearance, he humbled Himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross." For Christians, to accept humiliation (especially humiliation that is not validly earned) is to share both in Christ's Incarnation and Passion and death. We need only reflect that the very Maker of the Universe was Himself disregarded because of his obscurity ("Isn't this the carpenter's son? Mt. 13:55), and forced to face the ultimate humiliation of crucifixion ("Let him come down from the cross now, and we will believe in him (Jn 26:42)."
And this has practical significance in the way we deal with our own humiliations. When it was explained to me that I didn't get one of the "sure thing" jobs because a certain official didn't like me for some unknown reason (inconceivable!) my first thought was "I will curse his name until the day I die!" (Grudge holding is a family pastime.) However, if we look at humiliation as participation in Christ, can we do anything other than forgive and even bless those who revile us?
May God grant me the grace to accept my humiliations without bitterness.
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