Virtue Quest

I love etymology, the study of the origins of words. But it doesn’t take much study to discover that “holiday” is just “holy day” mashed together. Now, that’s easy to swallow for a religious person. There are even some who deliberately abstain from the shopping and decorations and caroling and what not that pervade the last couple months of every year, focusing instead on the particular celebrations of their religion. But is there anything genuinely or universally holy about the “holiday” season?

Holy days in the secular world?

I mentioned in an earlier post that Thanksgiving really strikes me as a holy day. And, being a Catholic, Christmas is of course a big deal for me and my family. But these two days are, I think, holy in very different ways.

Thanksgiving is holy in a kind of universal way, while Christmas is holy in a very specific and particular way.

See, Thomas Aquinas proposes that religion is a natural virtue, not one that depends on any particular creed or belief. He considers it a sub-virtue of justice. He doesn’t mean by this that a court should find you guilty of not spending enough time on your knees or of missing church on Sunday. But he does mean that everybody has a duty to respect and honor the holy and the divine.

And one of the main ways of honoring the holy and divine is through festivals and celebrations. We give thanks for the good things that we have received, and we give credit to the power beyond ourselves which has given those good things to us.

Even if we don’t all agree on the name that power goes by, it is a matter of justice to acknowledge that we have not and could not make or earn or create all the good things we have by our own power. And that’s something that even atheists and Baptists should be able to agree on.

And they do: by celebrating Thanksgiving Day.

Religious religion

Christmas, on the other hand, is a particularly Christian holiday. It’s only because the vast majority of the early American colonists came from Christian backgrounds that government offices and banks and most other businesses close for Christmas.

For myself, I celebrate Christmas because I believe that God became human and was born of the Virgin Mary roughly two millenia ago. I know Jews who celebrate Hanukkah because they believe that God once blessed their temple with light and continues to bless their people. I don’t know people of other faiths well enough to speak for them, but I expect that they celebrate various feasts for similar reasons: because they see some particular way that the holy and divine has touched this world, and perhaps has touched their lives directly.

The virtue of religion

By setting aside time, and by celebrating with special foods and with songs or dancing or trees or costumes or any kind of ritual – by dedicating some part of our lives to religious celebration, we build the habit of keeping in touch with those parts of reality which are beyond our ability to know completely, the source of good and the ground of our existence. This is the virtue of religion: to acknowledge and to honor the holy and divine.

I hope everyone had as relaxing and delightful Thanksgiving week as I did. Family and food and fun – I have much to be grateful for.

More than this, I have moved from the ranks of the unemployed to the fully employed! Starting December 1, I’ll be heading out to an office and working for The Man.

Now, I plan to continue posting to this blog, but I will probably have to pull back to three or four posts per week, rather than the four or five I have been writing.

In the meantime, I’ve also made some progress on an e-book I’ve been writing. I’d like to offer a chance to read and comment on the early draft(s) to other Questors. So, if you’re interested in that project, please join the quest!

Also, if there are particular topics or situations you’d like me to write about, please let me know! I’m writing this blog for your growth in virtue as much as for my own.

Happy Thanksgiving, and a Blessed Advent to you!

For my small handful of international readers, this week the U.S. is celebrating its Thanksgiving holiday. It’s one of the few holidays on the national calendar that truly deserves the name: it is a day dedicated to a holy act – giving thanks for the good we have received.

The attitude of gratitude

I find it ironic that a festival for giving thanks has both taken deep cultural root in the U.S. and even has become a civil holiday. Why? Because “the American dream” is so rooted in self-reliance, in pulling oneself up by one’s own bootstraps, in the notion of independence. The American ideal is to take what one earns rather than to receive what one is given.

But I think most people – American or otherwise – are too wise to believe all that. I’m certainly aware of how much I have been given without a hint of deserving or earning on my part: my very life, to begin with; my education; the love of my friends and family; the benefits of growing up in the late twentieth century in the wealthiest nation on the planet.

I think there are two ways to show gratitude: first is to rejoice at the gift, and to celebrate the one who gave you the gift; the second way is to use the gift, to unwrap it and give it a place in your life. In other words, when Grandma gives you a sweater, you tell her “Thank you” and then you wear it the next time you see her.

Developing the virtue of gratitude

For much of my life, I felt guilty about all the gifts I’d been given. I actually hated my birthday and Christmas because I had done nothing to deserve the presents I received. I somehow felt like they weren’t actually mine if I hadn’t earned them.

In other words, I’d let the “American ideal” overcome the natural order of things in my life.

Needless to say, “Thank you” did not come easily from my lips – until I realized that gifts are the most natural thing in the world. I realized that gifts always come before accomplishments or “earnings”. And that almost all the anxiety and frustration in my life came from refusing to receive anything as a gift.

So, over the past few years, I’ve been practicing the virtue of gratitude. I don’t mean just saying “Thank you.” I mean pushing aside that feeling of unworthiness and focusing on the goodness of the gift. This is even true of gifts that I don’t want or that are useless to me: I can focus on the love that someone is expressing by giving me something.

And, like all virtues, it grows with practice. By receiving small gifts, physical gifts, I find it’s easier to see the less tangible gifts. I find it’s easier to rejoice in my family, my friends, even co-workers and colleagues. I find it’s easier to see what is good in my church, my country, my home. I find it easier to give thanks for my own life, and I want to use my life for a good purpose.

Thank God I have a reliable news source like The Onion to keep me on top of the latest important events! Here’s from their latest report:

WASHINGTON—In an effort to combat what organizers are calling “our current epidemic of complete and utter obliviousness,” the American Foundation for Paying Attention to Things has declared December “National Awareness Month.”

“All across the country, millions of men and women are dangerously unaware,” AFPAT spokesperson Karen Teeling said during a press conference Monday. “What’s worse, the vast majority of those suffering from this debilitating state of mind don’t even know it.”

This is an event that all questors after virtue should support and participate in as much as possible. After all, just plain being aware of the real world, as it actually is, is the first action of prudence, and the foundation of all the other virutes!

Prudence: the foundation of the virtues

Prudence, in the classical sense, is not the sort of self-serving hemming and hawing one does to avoid difficulty; nor is it the greedy cleverness that enables one to get away with unacceptable activities. Rather,as Josef Pieper puts it, it is “the perfected ability to make right decisions.”

In order to make right decisions, a person needs several things:

• Intelligence: that is, the ability to perceive and understand reality
• Memory: the ability to accurately hold one’s knowledge in mind
• Docility, or Teachability: openness to the experience of others
• Cleverness: clarity and quick-wittedness in the face of the unexpected
• Rational foresight: the ability to draw correct conclusions from what is known
• Circumspection: not the ability to keep a secret, but the awareness of how circumstances affect the means used to achieve one’s goal
• Caution: awareness of dangers and evils involved in a situation

Oi! That’s a lot to hold on to. But it all really boils down to two things: First, awareness of reality; and second, the ability to draw conclusions about one’s actions.

How I became more aware of the world

A few years ago, I literally fell asleep at the wheel and crashed into the car in front of me. Thankfully, no one was hurt, but I realized that I couldn’t let myself drift off again. I had to take a fresh look at my own behavior and at my impact (so to speak) on the world around me.

I had to learn to take seriously that first action of prudence: I had to open my eyes and look around me. I had to become more aware.

I did this by taking some time to think about each day before I entered the rush and race of it all. One of the first things I realized was that I wasn’t getting enough sleep, so I had to take some time from my evenings to go to bed earlier. I still struggle with this: I feel like I have so many things left undone, I don’t have time to look around or take stock of the world around me.

The truth is, though, that I don’t have time not to take stock of what’s going on around me – and within me. Maybe I really should take the month of December to practice a little more awareness of my surroundings.

More on this later, but I wanted to pass on a video that I saw:

The trick to living virtuously is to see the good in it. Projects like this show that giving an opportunity to play makes acting virtuously, at least, in the small way of climbing stairs rather than standing on an escalator, more attractive.

One of these days, I’ll have to write a post on procrastination. I’m not sure when I’ll get around to it. Probably as soon as I finish explaining all the virtues in copious detail, finish writing my novel, get to the weekend, or maybe just as soon as I finish lunch.

I’m not even including the stupid excuses, like: as soon as I finish this game of solitaire, or, as soon as I finish watching this TV show.

It’s always “as soon as I….” It’s like a disease. And, as I was describing it to my friend the other day, she came up with a name for the disease: assoonasitis – a chronic inflamation and swelling of “as soon as I” in one’s vocabulary, leading to gross inactivity, perpetual vegetative state, and ultimately death.

Is there a doctor in the house?

I’ve never found a cure, and I don’t claim to be an expert on treating this disease, but I’ve lived with it all my life and I’ve tried all sorts of ways to overcome it, or at least to manage it.

I have only found two methods that consistently work.

• Regular accountability therapy with a trustworthy friend
• Immediate application of action at the first sign of an “as soon as I” flare-up

These methods need to be used together. Holding myself accountable to a friend gives me a consistent sense of motivation, as well as feedback on what I’m doing well and where I need improvement. I have one friend that I call every week, on a schedule. I have another friend whom I usually run into at least a couple times a week, and we both take the opportunity to catch up with each other.

This reduces the “as soon as I” impulse, but it doesn’t eliminate it entirely. That’s why the second method is just as important: in the very instant I find myself making excuses, right away I need to start doing something active and productive and useful. It doesn’t necessarily need to be the exact thing I’m avoiding; but it does need to be on the list of tasks I need to accomplish that day. It can be as simple as taking a shower, or as complex as driving across town for a project. The important thing is that I stop thinking up excuses in my head, and start doing something good with my body.

Virtue: medicine for what ails you

The reason these work is that the best way to overcome a vice is to replace it with a virtue. So, in my case, the vice is sloth and procrastination. The virtue I need is actually prudence leading to justice: it’s seeing reality instead of my made-up excuses, and acting according to that reality.

If you have found ways of overcoming procrastination, please tell us about it in the comment box, or drop me a line. Thanks!

So far, this has got to be my favorite line from Aristotle’s Nichomachian Ethics:

The self-indulgent man, as was said, is not apt to repent…. (VII.8)

Ah! How true! But then, is there any hope for me?

Temperance, self-indulgence, and incontinence

Aristotle is contrasting the self-indulgent person with the incontinent person. Here’s the difference: while both are intemperate, that is, both pursue pleasure or avoid pain to excess, the incontinent person is either overwhelmed by desire or is just plain thoughtless; the self-indulgent person, on the other hand, has made a deliberate decision to pursue pleasure or avoid vice in some excessive way.

The incontinent person just grabs that extra chocolate on impulse; the self-indulgent person decides that a diet of chocolate is really what’s best for him.

Now, Aristotle says that … well, I’ll let him speak for himself:

Now, since the incontinent man is apt to pursue, not on conviction, bodily pleasures that are excessive and contrary to the right rule, while the self-indulgent man is convinced because he is the sort of man to pursue them, it is on the contrary the former that is easily persuaded to change his mind, while the latter is not. For virtue and vice respectively preserve and destroy the first principle, and in actions the final cause is the first principle.

Okay, maybe he’s not entirely clear. Here’s how I read it. The incontinent person knows he has done something wrong, but the self-indulgent person is convinced of a lie: that he is acting rightly. So, it is easier for the incontinent person to admit wrongdoing and to take steps to reform his behavior (such as keeping the chocolate under lock and key) than it is for the self-indulgent person who sees no need for reform.

This is because the whole goal of virtue is to bring us in touch with reality, while vice is wrong and harmful exactly because it distorts or denies reality. (That’s roughly what Aristotle is talking about with the whole “first principle” stuff.)

Repent! Repent!

I think one of the reasons this line caught my attention was because I so strongly associate the word “repent” with religious preaching. But Aristotle is using it in its basic meaning: to feel sorrow (or penitence) for what one has done. And this sorrow is the foundation of a “change of mind”, which could also be translated by another word with religious overtones: conversion.

And yet, this is exactly what Aristotle suggests: if you’ve done something wrong, be sorry and change your behavior. Don’t make excuses. Don’t beat yourself up, either. Just keep in touch with reality, and try to correct your mistakes.

Because, while this means feeling sorry every so often, it also leads to a fuller and deeper happiness: the happiness of being fully human, fully yourself.

If only I could remember that every time I pass the candy dish….

I used to describe myself as unemployed. Then I started calling myself a freelance writer. Then, last week, I had a pretty good job interview during which the interviewer as much as told me I’d be hired, once the proper hoops had been jumped through.

So, being the impulsive person that I am, I started looking for one of those big-ticket items that one can acquire only when one has legitimate employment. I went apartment hunting.

The problem, of course, is that I do not as yet actually have the job I have almost been offered. Hoops remain to be jumped through. And apartments seem to require (for reasons beyond my willingness to imagine) actual solid proof of employment. As if anyone else in the financial sector operated that way!

Patience accepts reality as really real

Now, patience is not just the virtue of waiting for things that you have to wait for. It’s the virtue of waiting, well, with patience. That is, it’s holding on to a basic peace and tranquility while waiting. It’s a refusal to become anxious or unreasonably fearful.

In short, it’s accepting the reality that the world does not revolve around me.

Overcoming anxiety with patience

For about two and a half days, I was poring over internet apartment listings, visiting the actual apartments, making lists and budgets and comparisons … and talking to friends and family in hopes of finding some justification for immediate and unnecessary action.

Funny, they all counseled me to wait.

And, when I actually allowed myself to listen to their advice, I found (to my dismay!) that they were the reasonable and correct ones, and that I was letting my desire and anxiety run away with me. I had to remind myself of the facts of the situation. I had to bring myself back down to reality.

And reality, as it so often does, brought me back to peace and set me free from my fears.

I won’t say that I’ve become a patient man. But I will say that I’ve learned a lesson in patience. I am growing, slowly, in the virtue of patience. And I must remember to be patient while I grow in that very virtue.

You do remember Tetris, don’t you?

Of course you do. Those blocks keep coming, faster and faster… at a certain point I would just give up and let them stack like a skyscraper. But apparently there were Tetris experts who could play for twelve hours straight! Cuh-ray-zee.

So I was thinking about how to explain the process of building a habit, and it was Tetris that came to mind.

The blocks don’t stop!

In real life, as in Tetris, new situations keep appearing and they have to be fit into life as it is, whether we like it or not. There’s no choosing what shows up on the horizon. And there’s no stopping it. Life will keep coming at us, at a steady pace of twenty-four hours every day, for the rest of our lives.

But, there are ways to deal with it, to keep from being overwhelmed, even to use the strangely-shaped situations that life throws our way to the good. It’s like clearing a line in Tetris: when we arrange the different parts of life into the proper order, they cease to cause problems.

And, as we practice arranging our lives, we get better at it. Maybe we even begin to see new “problems” rather as “opportunities” to fill a gap, or to discover a new way of ordering life.

Perseverance is a virtue

Now, I’ve already mentioned that, in playing the game, I eventually give up out of frustration. I have to admit that I’m tempted to do the same in my life. I have friends who always get going whenever the going gets tough. I admire them tremendously. For myself, I tend to avoid the situation, to procrastinate, or even to hide.

That’s because, at root, I’m basically a coward. And perseverance is a kind of sub-virtue of fortitude. It’s the courageous act of facing every obstacle as it comes, no matter how many obstacles there are. It’s the refusal to surrender in the face of ongoing adversity.

Growing in perseverance

So here’s what I’m doing to overcome my cowardice: I’m setting a schedule. I’m pacing myself. I’m writing a to-do list, and putting the tasks in order of priority. In short, I’m taking a little time to strategize, to arrange my life as it exists, and to plan out where those incoming events can fit into it.

But just as importantly, I’m giving up the fantasy that someday it will all become easy. I think that’s the ultimate root of my fear: I think that life ought to be easy, and I’m frustrated when my dreams don’t arrive on a silver platter.

That is a lie. It’s time to face the fact that, whatever I might want, life will keep coming at me. I can’t put the game away; it’s not a game. But I can start looking at life as a series of opportunities rather than as a series of problems. I can look for how new situations can fit into some kind of order – even if it’s an order I hadn’t planned on.

If you want to find new ways to bring order to your life, too, please join the quest for virtue! We can learn from each other, and grow together!

If you’re in the Seattle area, I’d love to invite you to a couple events where I’ll be speaking!

Tonight, November 12th, I’ll be speaking on the Sacraments of Healing at Blessed Sacrament Parish in the U. District at 7:00pm.

Sunday morning, November 15th at 10:45am, I’ll be presenting “How to Watch Movies – As a Catholic”, again at Blessed Sacrament Parish.

I hope to see you there!