c. 1999 Religion News Service

(Tom Ehrich is a writer and computer consultant, managing large-scale database implementations. He lives in Durham, N.C.)

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. _ The Parents’ Weekend football game at University of North Carolina isn’t a pretty picture. But everything else lives up to its billing: a handsome stadium, a superb marching band (“the pride of the ACC”), a”Carolina blue”sky (even God cooperates) and a lovely campus picture-perfect for walking.

Colleges aren’t known for their restraint in self-praise. Deep-pocketed alumni and parents facing tuition hikes need to be stroked. How else do colleges attract students, professors, donations and athletes except by proclaiming themselves”the best”?

Every school can find something about itself to praise _ if not academic prowess, then athletics, or famous alumni, or one solid department, or a fun location, or small size, or antique buildings. Sometimes the self-exaltation requires some stretching _ as in,”We’re the oldest Methodist small college in this part of Texas with a regionally acclaimed dance program.” Not that anyone believes the puffery. A news magazine proclaims Harvard the best, but it would be hard to find anyone except Harvard graduates or Harvard wannabes who takes that claim seriously. The lads and lasses down Memorial Drive at MIT know the real story, as do folks at Cal Tech and Stanford, Williams and Amherst, Carnegie-Mellon and Princeton, Chapel Hill and Berkeley, and so on.

But part of believing in oneself is finding something to praise. We all need to feel special.

There is a point, however, at which football-weekend hyperbole becomes arrogance. Or a company’s self-praise in recruiting fosters a”kill-the-enemy”viciousness in doing business. Or a family’s self-delight becomes hostility toward strangers. Or a person’s self-esteem becomes justification for hatred.

At some point self-exalters become annoying, even dangerous. They get so caught up in self-stroking that other people become merely an audience that can applaud. Perspective and honesty go out the window.

I ran into this in clergy calling processes. Clergy were invited to exalt themselves, to lift themselves above the pack of applicants. The congregation, in turn, was trumpeting itself as the finest of all places to work.

No one said,”I’m a decent guy who is ready for a new job,”or”We are a typical bunch of marginal believers who want to hang together for another few years at least.”No one said,”I’m broken and frustrated and need a congregation that will love me into healing.”Or,”We ran off our last pastor, and we’re afraid of our potential for cruelty.” Even though congregations spend many hours preparing parish profiles, I don’t know any clergy who take them seriously. Even though clergy labor over resumes, computer profiles and answers to questions, I could tell that no one had read them carefully.

Some clergy try a clever variant on self-exaltation, the”Aw shucks”approach:”I’m not really looking to move,”or”I never really considered myself as a bishop.”But it’s all smoke.

If none of the self-exaltation were believed, there would be no problem. We could have a ritual burning of all profiles, resumes, job descriptions, late-night promises and promotional brochures, and then start the real process of self-discovery.

But we don’t tune out self-praise because we’re looking to fall in love. We want to believe at least some of the other’s self-exaltation because it feeds our own self-exaltation.

Then we’re stuck with the boasts that we made. We are pegged as liars. We feel betrayed. We are unmasked as not all that special. We become bitter. We take revenge.

In time, self-exaltation bears a sour fruit.”You will be humbled,”said Jesus. For not only are we unable to live into our billing, but any venture founded on deceit cannot prosper. No college is”the best,”no job is perfect, no employer is flawless, no worker is all-competent, no spouse is ideal, and not a single one of us is God.

Our hope never lies in coming close to our advertised excellence. Our hope lies in God and in the acceptance, compromise and commitment that God makes possible. If we can stop being dazzled by our own clippings, we can discover the truly awesome fact that God sees through our smoke and chooses to love us in spite of our flaws.

DEA END EHRICH