Virtue Quest

I'm all in! Or am I?

Friday, my dad hosted a poker party at his house. A couple uncles were there, and some other friends. Just nickel and dime stuff, but real money on the table. We drank. We swore. We laughed an awful lot. A good guy’s night.

Now, if you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you know I’ve been looking for a good day job. I have a solid gig for the moment, but it’s seasonal work and in April I’ll be “unemployed” again. So I’m sending out resumes and making calls and hoping for something to materialize before May arrives.

Now, there are two strong possibilities at present. One is in sales: I’m going in for a third interview later this week. But I’m not a natural salesman, and the company is looking for somebody “hungry”. I know that I could do the work, but I don’t think I’d like myself coming home each day from asking people to buy something that they didn’t necessarily want.

The other possibility is to be a dealer at a local casino. The wage isn’t much above minimum, but the tips can add up to a decent living. I’d enjoy it. I’d meet a wide variety of people, and hear some great stories, I’m sure. But I’m not sure that gambling is necessarily a good job for someone trying to pursue a life of virtue, and trying to encourage others to do so as well.

These aren’t the only options. I’m applying to various other places, including retail; but these are the only responses I’ve had, and I’m fairly sure that both these places are willing to hire me. Now, both would require me to go through some training up front that I would have to pay for. That’s fine; it’s not much training, I have enough cash in the bank, and the hire is guaranteed afterward.

The other night, a friend suggested that I make a list of pros and cons to help me figure it out. As I was thinking it through, I realized a few things:

• I don’t want a sales job
• I do want the dealer job
• But I’m afraid that dealing casino games would be a temptation against virtue

So, what “pros” means is, dealing cards would not be a temptation against virtue, and “cons” means dealing cards would be a temptation.

Here’s the list I’m starting. It’s an open list: I’ll update it as new ideas or suggestions come to me. So please feel free to make suggestions or give advice in the comments box!

PROS – not an occasion of sin:

• It’s not in-and-of-itself immoral, and the work is flexible enough to allow me to focus on writing and research in my off hours
• I’d be get to know a cross-section of society that I wouldn’t normally meet
• I might have the opportunity to reach out to someone who is reluctant to ask for the help he or she needs
• I would have the fun of gambling games without having to risk my own money
• …

CONS – a near occasion of sin:

• I’d be constantly surrounded by different kinds of temptation: to gamble with my own money, especially when I can’t afford it; to drink to excess; to lust after the provocatively dressed cocktail waitresses
• Secondhand smoke; ’nuff said
• Would I be enabling those who are gambling beyond their means, or are compulsive/addictive gamblers?
• Would it compromise my efforts to write about and encourage people toward virtue?
• …

Again, please comment and offer any advice you’re willing to part with! Thanks!

Yesterday was, well, a bit nuts. So I’ll catch you up on the past couple days:

• February 26:
• Woke up about 8am
• Prayed in the morning, not in the evening
• Had a phone conversation with a good friend on the east coast
• A little re-writing on the novel
• Worked about 8 hours
• Came home to a poker party, at which I won more than I lost
• Got to bed around 1:30am
• February 27:
• Woke up about 8:45
• Phone call with another good friend
• Worked for about 7 hours
• Phone call with yet another good friend
• Phone call with a fourth good friend – thank God for good friends!
• Watched some telly (“House” I think)
• Prayed in the evening, not in the morning
• Posted my submissions to the Catholic Writer’s Conference Online
• Got to bed around 10pm

Thanks for checking out my blog!

My focus is on how to live out the cardinal and theological virtues in everyday life. I’m writing for a secular audience, so I don’t use a lot of Catholic-talk; but I don’t hide my faith, either.

If you like what you see, please spread the word. And feel free to explore the site, and to comment on posts old and new.

grace and peace,
Robert

Bit of a crazy morning this morning, but here’s yesterday:

• Woke up early, about 6:30, had breakfast, then back to bed till my alarm went off
• Didn’t pray in the morning, but did pray in the evening
• Worked about 8 hours
• Rewrote a passage for the critique group
• Wrote a post for Coalition for Clarity
• Did a little job searching
• Helped clean the house for tonight’s poker party
• Watched some telly (“Burn Notice” – go Fiona!)
• Finished reading a bad translation of Tao Te Ching – working on a post about that
• Got to bed around 11

One of the results of not playing computer games is that I don’t use my computer much at night. So, I haven’t been on the computer to write up my daily inventory before I go to bed.

The daily inventory gives me a reality check, though. It’s a way of seeing my behavior more clearly. But because it’s a good thing to not be on the computer late at night, I’m going to try doing the inventory in the morning instead. So, here’s what yesterday looked like:

• Woke up about 8am with my alarm
• Didn’t pray
• Had the day off from work, but had a job interview
• Took a nap after the job interview – I’d been out late at a movie (“Shutter Island”) the night before
• Did some job searching
• Printed out the first six chapters of my novel; I’m submitting a couple passages to an online critique forum later this week, so I’m doing a quick re-write
• Wrote a post for this blog
• Watched a little telly (latest episode of “Lost”)
• Had dinner with some friends
• Some reading
• Went to bed around 10:30

What seems to be the problem?

A cop pulled me over the other evening as I was driving home from work.

I had to move into a turn lane so that I could make it to the freeway onramp, and there were a couple cars in the lane with just enough room for me to squeeze in between them. So I flicked my turn signal, checked my blind spot, and moved over.

Immediately, the car behind me – a black, unmarked sedan – flashed police lights and a spotlight right in my rear-view mirror. There was no shoulder, so I turned into a parking lot and the police car pulls behind me.

“Do you know why I pulled you over?” he asked. “You failed to signal for one hundred feet before changing lanes, and you cut me off so that I had to apply my brake to avoid a collision.”

After he let me go, I cruised on home. Driving along the freeway, I kept thinking how I’ve done the same maneuver a thousand times without an accident, and I was pretty sure he was actually accelerating to close the gap I had moved into, and didn’t this guy have anything better to do than pull me over?

But at some point it occurred to me that the officer was in fact correct. I had broken the traffic law. And he had every right, even an obligation, to pull me over.

For the record – or, thankfully, the lack of one – he let me off with a warning.

Now, this didn’t stop me from driving about five over the speed limit on my way home. And it didn’t make me call the police station to confess my every traffic violation. But it did remind me that I am not the standard by which the law should be set. I’m an ordinary schmoe, and I make mistakes, and I cut corners when I think I can get away with it.

Even so, the law reminded me that the road is a dangerous place, where I’m skimming the concrete at sixty-five, surrounded by two-ton juggernauts of aluminum and steel that are flying by at least as fast as I’m going. So I did drive a little more carefully.

And, meanwhile, I’m trying to be more open to correction in every part of my life. Because, just as on the road, I’m not always right. I make mistakes. I cut corners. I don’t always get away with it – and thank God! If there were never any consequences, I’d never learn from my mistakes, and I would hurt my friends much more often than I already do.

Overlooking Vancouver

I’ve always preferred playing sports to watching them. In fact, I’ve only ever enjoyed watching sports that I’ve had at least some minimal experience at playing before I’ve watched them.

For me, at least, there’s a level of understanding, a kind of sensual, visceral understanding, that I can’t get from watching someone else or hearing the rules explained.

But beyond this, I think it’s safe to say that the primary purpose of sports is not to be watched; the raison d’etre of sport is playing.

Victory: a common goal

It’s no coincidence that both the Olympic games and the idea of virtue were born in the same place. Both are different ways of striving for excellence, for the best one is able to achieve. They are both about doing something well.

In a sense, the Olympics are about reaching the heights of human ability as it is expressed in the body. It is a delight in the body, a rejoicing in strength and speed and skill. And, in the ancient games, it was an offering of this glory for the honor of the gods. Even today, the victory of any particular athlete or team is bestowed upon the whole nation to which the victor belongs.

In other words, sports teach us that even our greatest achievements are not entirely our own. My glory, my victory, is something that I receive from others, and that I hand on to others.

Virtue and victory

This is the kind of knowledge I feel when playing sports, rather than just watching them. I feel connection – to my teammates, to my opponents, to the field or the court I played on, to my own body. It is a strange kind of finding myself by losing myself in the action.

And, strangely enough, this is the kind of knowledge I sometimes gain when I know I am acting virtuously. I feel connected to the people around me, whether friends or clients or strangers. I feel … how do I put it? I feel my self doing the acts of virtue, whether it’s an act of my mind (like making a good choice) or an act of my body (like doing hard work).

It’s a kind of victory: victory over the temptations of fear or laziness or illusion. This is why we sometimes talk about treating life like a game, or a sport: we’re evoking that sense of challenge and striving for victory. We’re calling on that knowledge that goes beyond the brain to every cell in our bodies.

The moral dimension

The difference, of course, is that a person can be a gold-medal athlete and still be a real jerk. The excellence that virtue seeks is excellence at being human. It’s not about any one action or kind of action; it’s about how we act. Virtue is about doing everything we do in the most humane or human way possible.

The victory of virtue, the prize and the glory, is not what we claim or achieve: it is what we become. Our prize is ourselves.

I know I have been less than regular about these inventories. That itself is a sign that I’m stressed and tired. I think I have too many plates a-spinning. Still, I’m grateful for all my friends who keep my head pointed in the right direction, no matter how dizzy I get. Thank you!

On to today’s list:

• Woke about 6:30, then back to sleep till 8
• Good talk with a friend on the phone
• Morning prayer and some meditation, about 30 minutes total
• Eight hours at work
• Finally got through to a receptionist and set up an interview for another job
• Family dinner tonight
• Couple hours of TV after dinner (“Leverage” season finale)
• Going to pray and get to bed ASAP

I, the party of the first part....

I was listening to the radio on the way into work this morning and heard a story about how some scientists are afraid they’ll have to throw out the past eight years’ worth of research on human embryonic stem cells.

The reason? It seems that proper consent was not obtained for some of the stem cell lines that President Bush approved back in 2001. I can only assume they were talking about these objections from a UCSF team.

I had to laugh. They can’t do the research because they don’t have a signed permission slip?

Yet these same people pooh-pooh those who object on the grounds that the embryos are human lives being destroyed. Because that’s just not an important question.

Consent: the sole criterion of the good?

My friend Mark likes to point out that our culture seems to have rejected every virtue except tolerance, and every standard of goodness or value except informed consent. He notes that neither of these are sufficient to base a human society on; in fact, they both ultimately lead to a society that collapses upon itself.

I think the problem is that we have, by and large, accepted unquestioningly the myth that we are first and foremost individuals. A nation, a community, even a family, is presumed to be something that we enter into by choice. We have a “social contract,” and all our relationships suddenly have the nature of a contract. They are negotiated, agreed to, and disputes are adjudicated based on the terms of the contract as understood by the parties.

No wonder we have so many lawsuits. No wonder politics has become the common religion practiced by Americans. No wonder the only solutions we can come up with to any problems are legal ones.

No wonder we pay more attention to a medical form than to a human life.

Why human nature is important

On the other hand, all the ancient and medieval thinkers knew that the human person is a social animal. “No man is an island,” as John Donne put it. We cannot be born without other people. We cannot survive without a family. We cannot accomplish any tasks without relying on others to provide what we cannot provide for ourselves.

And we cannot be fully human without other people to converse with, to laugh with, to play with, to work with. We actually are least human when we are isolated as individuals.

When we forget this, when we base our entire sense of goodness on my own individual consent – as if I were utterly independent of the rest of the world – then we lose sight of what is truly good for the human person: love, friendship, collaboration, joy and peace. All these are gifts; they cannot be legislated and are not subject to a contract. We have no right to them. The only consent required is the consent to receive them from those who love us.

Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return

Today, Ash Wednesday, begins the season of Lent in the Catholic Church. It’s a season of prayer and fasting and almsgiving, imitating Christ’s forty days in the desert, and preparing to celebrate his passion and resurrection at Easter.

Some Christian traditions, such as the Orthodox, have a very strict discipline for Lent. We Catholics have it fairly light in terms of required discipline: two days of actual fasting – Ash Wednesday and Good Friday – and no meat on any Fridays. But we’re encouraged to take on other penances ourselves.

So, here’s how I’m going about the whole Lenten thing.

Prayer, Fasting, Almsgiving

Prayer is the foundation and the heart of Lent. But not just any prayer. It’s a prayer of testing. Jesus went into the desert to be tested, so this prayer is for strength and endurance in the face of testing, in the face of temptation. It’s also a prayer of abandonment to God. It’s giving him permission to test me, and to challenge me in ways I haven’t necessarily planned for.

So, I’m taking up an old form of prayer: the Liturgy of the Hours. I’ve prayed this way before, and I’ve taken a break from it for a little while. But it’s very appropriate for Lent because it constantly recalls me to the very basics of my dependence on God.

As for fasting, I’m going to give up salty snacks (like chips and peanuts and such) as well as desserts at home. These are things that I really do long for, that I’ll notice are gone from my diet, and that will remind me that “man does not live on bread alone.” And that’s the main point of fasting: to rely on God’s care at a fundamental level. I don’t make my own food. God, ultimately, is the one who feeds me.

Also, on the not-so-foodlike-stuff level, I’m giving up computer games. I enjoy the heck out of them, but they too easily distract me from what’s truly important in life.

I’ll be honest: I don’t quite know what to do about almsgiving. I do make regular charitable donations from my income. I probably could devote a bit more money to it, but I don’t have all that much to give. So I’ve been thinking about doing some kind of volunteer work. I know there’s plenty that needs doing. Just not quite sure where to focus.

If you have any ideas, I’m open to them. I figure I’ll talk it through with my spiritual director when I next see him.

In any case, giving alms is like the other two Lenten disciplines: it forces me to put my trust in God. Not only that I can make do with less, but that God can give great things to others through me.

I don’t know how many of my readers celebrate Lent, but if you want to share what you’re doing, I think it would make great conversation in the comments box!