Virtue Quest

I know it’s horribly late notice, but it also serves as an explanation (not an excuse) for why I haven’t blogged much lately.

Tomorrow, that is, Friday the 10th of June, I’ll be presenting at the Northwest Catholic Family Education Conference.

I’ll actually be appearing several times during the day. I’ll give a talk on practical approaches to virtue in everyday life. Then I’ll sit on a panel with such luminaries as Mark Shea and Dawn Eden. And between, I’ll be providing one-on-one consultation with people, sorting out exactly what each one can do to begin the quest for virtue in his or her life.

This whole “virtue consult” thing is a new development. I’ll see how it goes tomorrow, and pay close attention to the feedback. But if it goes well, I’m thinking of offering ongoing “virtue consultation” as a regular service.

If you are at the conference tomorrow, please let me know what you think of the talk and of the consult idea. If you’re in the greater Seattle area, and are interested in trying out a consult, please let me know! I’d love to talk with you.

Where to begin...?

As a sophomore in college, I had a single dorm room. No roommate. A space entirely my own. And I remember that, after the first ten minutes, it terrified me. I don’t think I ever finished entirely unpacking.

I had no one to tell me where my things were supposed to go.

I know that most normal people – you do realize I’m rather abnormal, I hope – would feel the thrill of freedom and the drive to creativity in deciding for themselves where their own things should go. But I was very caught up in a way of thinking limited to “right” and “wrong,” that had no room for “good” and its chums “better” and “best”.

It was actually the required class on Western Civilization that woke me up, or started to. (more…)

First off, I apologize for the sparse posting this week. Many turkeys in the oven, so to speak.

Fiction as a “virtual reality”

We're in trouble now!

This is a little off topic for the blog, but what the heck: it’s only a blog after all. In addition to this blog, I’m a fiction writer as well. Being both neurotic and an introvert, I spend way too much time interrogating myself about whether it’s good or realistic or productive or whatever to write stories.

This is how I justify it to myself. I hope that my justification has some basis in reality. (more…)

It takes practice to look this cool

Anyone who plays guitar (or, as I do, bass guitar,) develops calluses on their fingers where they hold down the strings. It doesn’t take long, maybe a week of playing a little every day; but that can be a painful week, and the strings feel like they’re cutting into the soft flesh at the tips of your fingers. It’s especially bad if you only play occasionally, because any calluses you develop fade away when you’re not playing, so they have to develop all over again.

Whenever I pick up the bass again after neglecting it for a month or so, it’s not just the physical pain I feel. I feel a kind of moral pain, that “I should’ve been practicing all this time.”

But when I do practice regularly, (more…)

"And sorry I could not travel both / And be one traveler, long I stood..."

Discernment is the process of seeing something more clearly. The reason to see something more clearly is to know how to act toward whatever is seen.

Pretty simple, right?

It’s one of those “easier said than done” things. There are two obstacles, at least two that I’ve encountered in my own life:

1. Admitting that I don’t see things very clearly to begin with
2. Actually acting on what I’ve discovered to be true

Seeing clearly

In terms of virtues, discernment falls under the virtue of prudence or wisdom: it is the skill of looking closely at oneself and the world to find a clear understanding of what one is to do.

There are other aspects of prudence, too. (more…)

I've been expecting your call!

The other day, I was talking with a friend from a writer’s group I work with. She was describing how inspiration strikes her, and it resonated with my own experience: it genuinely feels as if someone else is telling or directing the story.

It’s not split-personality – at least, not for myself or any of the other writers I know. But it’s a strong sense that A) I’m not sufficient in myself to write this piece, and B) I’m not alone in writing it. This experience is common enough that the ancient Greeks named goddesses who inspire the various arts and occupations: the Muses. Even the word “inspire” means “breathe into;” that is, the ideas are breathed into the artist or the worker, the words whispered into the ear of the poet.

The collaborative feeling of following a muse can be exhilarating. (The Greeks called it “ecstasy,” literally, standing outside yourself.) I’ve talked to people from all walks of life, ranging from manufacturing to scholarship to service, and many talk about this kind of feeling: a kind of connection, through the work, with something or someone greater than themselves. Some call it “being in the zone” or “going on autopilot” or some other phrase that conveys how the work becomes energizing and exciting and easy.

But that feeling is, like all feelings, a passing thing. Nobody feels it all the time, and some people feel it rarely, if ever. It’s tempting to chase after the feeling or to grow despondent when it’s absent; and it’s also tempting, for cynics like me, to dismiss the feeling altogether.

The truth is, (more…)

'Nuff said

I was driving a friend to the airport, and we got talking about media and politics – always a dangerous combination. My friend was talking about how 1) NPR doesn’t take a strong enough stand on the truth or falsehood of some news items; and 2) it’s utterly irrational to dispute the reality of global warming.

I’ve got no dog in either fight. For the record, I listen to NPR occasionally and find it to focus on rather different issues (it tends to give a strangely large portion of time to pelvic issues) than the other local news stations, but with not too different a slant or bias. I’m sure that human activity has a significant effect on our climate but I’m always suspicious of a scientist who considers a question as closed and beyond dispute. What if Einstein never disputed Newton? Or Newton, Aristotle? Or Aristotle, Plato? Etc.

So, being the argumentative type, I asked him how his vision for NPR/PBS would be so different from FOX News, which he excoriates as a “propaganda machine.” And I asked him how to cover the genuine dispute over changes in the climate.

He replied that the news should investigate facts, and should not just give a “Republicans say X, Democrats say Y. Who’s to say what’s true?” account. Which I entirely agree with, so long as the facts are themselves clear and indisputable.

As to the reality of global warming, he recommended to me Al Gore’s film, An Inconvenient Truth. When I asked about the apparent manipulation of data and the secrecy policies I’d heard about, he simply replied that the science was solid and established and irrefutable.

Faith and trust

Now, a car ride to the airport is not the time to draw out a detailed philosophical argument. So I don’t want to be clear that I don’t think my friend was just avoiding questions or justifying his own beliefs. Having had detailed philosophical arguments with him, I know he’s a very smart and savvy debate partner.

But the situation reminded me of the way debates seem to be conducted in public forums these days: claiming that a position is indisputable, and therefore implying that one’s opponent is either stupid or arguing in bad faith.

It’s a subtle form of ad hominem,

an argument that fails because it focuses on the person rather than on the issue. And it’s all over. It’s the foundation of virtually every political ad I’m hearing on the radio and seeing on TV – all of which seem to be attack ads. It’s also rife in the blogosphere, in which the same statement seems to be taken entirely differently depending on whether it’s posted on the Huffington Post or the Drudge Report.

So, being an all-around skeptic, I tend to be very cautious about where I put my trust. I’m willing, even happy, to play devil’s advocate against just about any position, because I’ve discovered that most “facts” are indeed open to dispute, or at least to deeper questioning.

It is perhaps ironic that one of my greatest certainties is that most things in life are uncertain. I know how limited my own knowledge is, and how narrow my understanding is of what I know. When I’m relying on other people – which is foundational to human life – I tend to put more faith in those who also seem aware of their own limits than in those who claim an absolute certainty. People who know their limits are less likely to attempt to overreach.

Tools for life

This is why (to continue an argument from last week) I rely on tools like logic, or like the traditional structure of the virtues. I know how easily I make mistakes in my thinking or screw up my own life, left to my own devices. Ways of thinking and acting that have been tested through generations, that have had many of the kinks worked out of them, are reliable guides and serve as reality checks when I’m facing a difficult problem.

More than that, they give me something beyond my own opinions or desires that I can base a real and deep communication with others on. Logic and virtue help me sort out what’s real and true from what’s agenda.

Just keep walking, just keep walking...

I get overwhelmed pretty easily. Sometimes, just looking at the pile of dishes in my sink exhausts me. Other times I’m more ambitious: I figure I can conquer the world but I worry if I’ll make it outside the little pond of our solar system. But the fact is, whenever I face a new task – or a new start on an ongoing task – there’s a part of me that asks, “Can I really do that?”

For example, I’ve mentioned that I’m working on a book about my grandmother’s life. Until the last couple weeks, I’ve been stuck on the magnitude of the project. I talked to one of my uncles about my problems, and he suggested a couple ways to break the project down into smaller pieces, each of which is do-able in an hour or two.

Well, duh! says I. I know how to do that. I just don’t want to.

Why not? (more…)

To everything... (turn, turn, turn)

I have two main goals for this blog: First, to share practical, down-to-earth tips on growing in virtue that I glean from my own experience and what I’m learning from others; Second, to transform the world into a perfectly virtuous society.

Okay, so maybe the second goal is a little ambitious. I guess I’ll focus on the first.

I find I often get stuck, whether in a project or in a relationship or just in life, because I don’t feel like I’ve made enough progress. I feel like I’m spinning my wheels, like I’m never going to get to the destination. I wonder whether it’s worth all the effort I’ve put into it – or worth any effort at all.

It helps me to see where I actually stand in the big picture. For example, I’m working on a book, and I’m still mainly in the research phase. It’s frustrating that I don’t have many pages written, but I have to remind myself that I really shouldn’t have many pages written at this point in the project. What I should have – and do have – are lots of notes and a to-read list that I’m slowly working through.

The big picture of a virtuous life

Living a life of virtue is a much bigger project than writing a book, and the process can seem vague or unclear. The goals are abstract: happiness, ease, skill. The advice is general: practice, discern, persist. This is because virtue is a habit that applies to every action and decision a person takes, pretty much from birth to death; so it’s hard to get too specific.

That said, I do think there are three broad stages of growth in virtue, and seeing where I am in those stages helps me keep working.

The stages are:

1. Discipline
2. Experimentation
3. Mastery

(more…)

Ignatius the knight, before he became Ignatius the saint

I’ve recently started a nine-month “retreat” – though maybe a better name would be a spiritual workshop – based on the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola. The goal of the retreat, at least for me at this point in my life, is to learn the skill and process of discernment.

Discernment is the ability to see clearly or, maybe better, to see to the heart of the matter. It is the ability to tell one thing from another. So with physical vision, for example, it is the ability to tell your mother from your sister when they’re still a quarter mile down the street.

In morality, it is the ability to tell good from evil, (which usually is easy,) or to distinguish one good from another, (which often is harder). It is the skill of seeing the good that I should pursue in this situation, and the good that I should let go, at least for the moment.

Getting to the Exercises

I had long been suspicious of the Ignatian Exercises because, from what people told me of them, it sounded like they boiled down to “find your heart’s deepest desire.” But there’s much more to life than the desires of my heart, even the deepest ones, so I spent many years avoiding the Exercises.

However, after only the first couple sessions, I’ve discovered to my great delight (and only partly to my surprise) that the Exercises contain a great deal more that mere emotionalism. I figured as much, since they’ve stood the test of five centuries; but I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to find a director who would go beyond the passions.

Putting my questions in order

I should say here that I’m bringing what I’m learning to this blog as I’m learning it. In other words, these are my first impressions, in the moment of discovery. Please don’t take this as a complete exposition on Ignatius or his program.

One of the first things I’m learning is that discernment involves putting my questions in the proper order. Here’s what I’ve sorted out at this point:

1. What desires, attachments, thoughts persist in me? What remains strong over time? What are the deep desires of my heart?
2. Where do these attachments or desires lead? What are their various results or consequences?
3. What do I choose to be my goal or destination?
4. Seeing my desires and my destination, what practical step will I take? Which desire will I pursue, and how?
5. Having taken that action, what in fact happened? Were there any surprises, or anything to consider in taking my next action

Obviously, this is a process for major decisions; everyday decisions, I hope, can be made more easily and without so much reflection. But since I have trouble with both kinds of decision-making, I’m very glad for any tool of discernment that comes my way.