Chapter 7: The value of humility (paragraphs 1-3)

The word of God in scripture teaches us in clear and resounding terms that anyone who lays claim to a high position will be brought low and anyone who is modest in self-appraisal will be lifted up. (From Saint Benedict's Rule, trans. by Patrick Barry, OSB, 1997.)

I hear Benedict making a distinction between the floundering and noisy self-inflation of the ego, and the selflessness necessary to "be lifted up". I have experienced self-inflation as a weighty mixture of pride, anxiety and blindness. I don't think that silence or selflessness weighs anything, and, so, like a tiny bird, is free.