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Are we arrogant for focusing on ourselves and showing ourselves to the world? William Blake wrote: “The pride of the peacock is the glory of God.” We might say that the peacock displays his colors proudly but knows they are a gift, not his invention. He lets us see the “glory” of nature but also knows that only he can hold it in such splendor. When, in early life or in some relationships, our needs and choices were unsafe to show, inappropriate or unwelcome in others’ eyes, we might have hidden our colors.

But nonetheless, in the back woods of our mind, we still wanted to be ourselves. We might have been humiliated for our unique feathers. Now we can embrace our uniqueness as a gift that serves wholeness—the way the peacock does. His feathers are not like the medals on the puffed-out chest of a military tyrant. They are articulations of the vast variety of beauty in the natural world. The pride of the peacock is not showing off but showing forth the brilliant possibilities of grace-giving nature. The pride of the healthy ego is just like that.

Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, both in the book and the film, presents a........

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