Virtue Quest

The following is the article I mentioned below, originally printed in Gleanings in their September 2010 issue (.pdf). They’ve been kind enough to let me reprint it here. Legal notices at the bottom.

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A friend of mine loves to delve into the roots of words. She loves discovering distant relations between words that reveal their deeper meanings. For example, the other day we explored the relationships between words like “lector” and “election” and “collect” — all of which have descended from the Latin verb legere, which means to gather, or to choose, or to read (because reading is about choosing the correct meaning of the word on the page).

In the same way, phrases have “family histories” as well. The phrase, “strike while the iron is hot” comes from the fact that a blacksmith had to watch for the iron to turn just the right color — red hot, or white hot, or somewhere between — so that his hammer could have just the right effect. The phrase doesn’t mean just to take action; it means to take the right kind of action at the right time.

“Strike while the iron is hot” advises us to be diligent in all areas of life. And diligence, oddly enough, is another legere word: it means to collect information and select the right action in response. But it means even more than that.

Holy Diligence

St. Thomas Aquinas, the greatest theologian of the medieval Church, teaches that “diligence” refers to the same virtue as “solicitude,” which also refers to the same virtue as “vigilance.” To be diligent is to be watchful, to be attentive, to be careful about matters that are important. But there is even more meaning than that in this word. The Latin word Thomas uses, diligere, means “to prize, love, esteem highly.” So, when he explains why “diligence” is the same as “solicitude” (meaning attentive care or concern) he says, “the more we love (diligimus) a thing the more solicitous are we about it.”

In other words, diligence is a form of love: it is the kind of love that chooses something to be our own, and takes care of it. It is the love that pays attention to what we love, because we have taken responsibility for it.

This is, of course, one of the ways that God loves us: he chooses each one of us to be his own. He watches over us, and attends to our needs. He provides what is important to keep us safe and to show our value to him.

He gives us his Son, who chose to join himself to us “in the fullness of time” – that is to say, when the iron was hot – in our journeys and in our labors and even, ultimately, in agony and death. He did this because he prized us and chose us to be his own.

He gives us his Spirit, his very life, his own power of love, to watch over each one of us and to guide each of us toward the joy he has prepared for us.

How to Be Diligent

Because we have his Spirit, we also have his love. That means that, just as he does, we can love with diligence. We can choose someone to be our own — as we do in friendship, or in marriage. We can collect all those things good and necessary for the one we love — as we do for our children. We can watch for the right moment, for the opportunity to demonstrate our love — as we do when someone needs help or wants company.

And, as much as we love one another diligently, God calls us to love him diligently as well.

Of course, God doesn’t need anything from us; we don’t have to take care of him. But we do have to take care of our relationship; that’s how we choose him to be our own.

For example, I sometimes go to daily Mass after work. In the evening I’m usually tired and I have developed a bad habit of nodding off during the readings or the homily. But I’ve discovered that if I’m diligent, if I make sure I get a good night’s sleep and eat a snack in the mid-afternoon, I’m able to stay awake. I’m able to be attentive and present to my God, who is making himself available and present to me. And I keep from distracting the rest of the congregation with my snoring.

I’m a naturally lazy man, and I know I won’t find time to pray unless I set aside time in my daily planner, just as I would for any other important appointment. And, just like an important appointment, there’s some preparation that goes into getting ready for the meeting. So I remind myself to take time for spiritual reading — usually the Bible or some spiritual master. I know that if I want to see clearly what God is doing in my prayer and in my life, I’d better set up some reminders to be careful and attentive, to keep watchful, to make my choice active in every moment of my life.

The Danger of Negligence

The opposite of diligence is negligence. If “diligence” means “to choose for one’s own,” then “negligence” is the “neg”-ative of choice. Negligence is the refusal to choose, and therefore the refusal to love. Negligence says, “You are not worth my attention.”

Jesus tells many parables warning us against negligence. In the parable of the sower, what is the problem with the rocky or the thorny soil? They both neglect to fully receive Christ. Or, what would happen to the treasure in the field or the pearl of great price if the merchant neglected them? Their value and worth would never be found. And of course, what is the difference between the wise and foolish virgins waiting for the bridegroom? The foolish ones neglected to prepare their lamps with oil.

What is the point of all these parables? That if we treat God with negligence, if we refuse to put time and care into our relationship with him, we will miss him when he comes. We will not recognize him because we have neglected to get to know him. This means that we will neglect to enter eternal life with him in Heaven, as some of the parables make clear; but it also means that we will miss out on the gifts and joys and blessings he offers us every day. If we neglect the foretaste of Heaven now, we will not be able to taste and see his goodness then.

The Joy of Diligence

On the other hand, the time put into preparation and the effort of watching attentively pays off abundantly in those life-changing moments, those times when we must make a decision and make it now — to change a career, to enter a relationship with someone, to follow a call to priesthood or religious life — and we find ourselves ready. We have chosen God as our greatest good, we have collected the gifts and blessings he has given us, and we recognize the shape and color of his love in this moment. Like the blacksmith, we know when the iron is ready to be shaped, and we have the tools at hand to shape it according to God’s glorious design.

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Copyright © 2010 WWCCR, reprinted with permission.

The 1967 film version of “Camelot” formed a great deal of my childhood, and still stands close by me today. Indeed, I remember in the 1980′s seeing Vanessa Redgrave in a contemporary film and being shocked because I knew her as the lithe young Guenevere. And I dearly loved the hyper-emotional Richard Harris in every role he played (he was magnificent in “Gladiator” in part because of the resonance between young Arthur and ancient Marcus Aurelius).

But perhaps the most powerful scene, for me, is the one where Arthur goes hunting in the woods, and reminisces of his youthful training under Merlyn (played by Laurence Naismith). Arthur asks Merlyn, “What’s the best thing for being sad?” and Merlyn replies, “The best thing for being sad is to learn something!”

Now, I’ve discovered a number of other things that are good for being sad, and, although things like sitting and talking with a close friend and doing something productive are also very good when I’m sad, I’ve never found anything that would definitively displace Merlyn’s advice about the very best thing for sadness.

Sadness and learning

I’ve had to rely on all these methods over the past week or so. The cause of my sadness has been a number of small, personal events that don’t really need talking about (though it began with that car accident I wrote about last week). But when friends were not available and work was just too difficult, I could always learn something.

I’ve been reading voraciously in Thomas Aquinas’ First Part of the Summa Theologica, specifically what is known as his “Treatise on Man” in which he describes human nature.

What is wonderful about this is, not only was it good learning, but it helped me understand why learning is a solution to sadness.

According to Thomas, humanity stands at a crossroads of creation: we are both material and spiritual beings. That is, we are physical (like stones and shrubs and squirrels) and also intellectual (like angels and God). This puts us at a unique place in the universe, and this uniqueness extends to how we understand (intellegere, in Latin) and how we act.

We do not act in the same way that other animals do, because they are guided by sense and instinct, while we are guided by reason. And we do not understand in the way that pure spirits do, because they apprehend truths directly, while we move from known to unknown by reason. Reason is the unique feature of human nature that sets us apart from everything else in creation.

Sadness (as an emotion, not as the vice of sloth) is an indicator that something is missing from our nature. So when an animal is sad, it seeks something to heal or restore its body (including its emotions). I’m not sure if an angel can be sad, but if it were it would seek something to return it to its direct apprehension of truth and goodness and beauty.

If a human being is sad, the answer lies (at least in part) in reason. The core, the “heart” as it were, of being human is to understand things by coming to know what is unknown. So in sadness, we seek to understand why we are sad, and then to know what we can do about it.

In other words, we learn something.

Even when knowing the source of some particular sadness eludes us, even then learning something brings a kind of healing and restoration and even growth. This is because our nature is (in part) to learn, and any time we learn anything we are fulfilling our nature. We become more happy when we learn because we become more ourselves.

Beyond learning

I said that our nature is in part to learn; that’s because our nature is also to act on what we have learned, to put our knowledge into deeds.

That’s partly what I’m doing here: I’m attempting to share something that I’ve learned with others. But it also means taking action to work better, to play better, to love our friends and family and neighbors better. The more we learn, the better we can act toward others. And, as if in reward, the more we can learn from those we love.

[A historical note: I started writing this post over a week ago... and have only now got round to finishing it. Urp!]

I think I mentioned that I’d given up computer games for Lent. I’m not much of a gamer, as gamers go. Spider solitaire and a third-party version of Risk are my favorites. Never got into the MMOGs. But I’ll be honest, those games can waste hours at a time. That’s plural hours. As in, way too many.

So, that’s a big reason I’ve been slowly growing sleep deprived since Easter Sunday. End of day comes, and I think, hey, I’m allowed my games. And next thing I know it’s 1am (or later), and I have to be up for work the next morning.

Run away! Run away!

Sure, I play games to relax. But it often becomes something more than that. It turns into an attempt to escape from my life.

Not that my life is all that rough. But I am, as I’ve said, a lazy man and I resist any intrusion on my comforts. It quickly becomes a matter of principle: if work takes time away from leisure, then play takes time away from sleep.

Sleep, of course, ultimately takes its time back … usually at the least convenient moment.

All of this could have been avoided if only I’d been a little more disciplined, a little more realistic. I just don’t have all the time I’d like to play and relax and make a fool of myself. None of us do. There’s lots of good in life, but some parts of life are just plain tough, and that’s normal.

Penance and parties

I think that’s one of the lessons of Lent: that part of life is hard work, is difficult, even painful. But the penance leads to a celebration: our work bears fruit, and there’s a greater joy than the mere escape of vegging out with a computer game.

So I’m trying to remind myself of the good things that arise from giving up computer games and other distractions – good things like a full night’s sleep and the ability to enjoy life the next day.

And when I restrict my game playing to times when I really have nothing better to do, I find I actually enjoy the game more. Who’d have thought it?

I have a meeting in St. Louis this weekend, so this morning I had to pack my bags before heading out to work. And I’ve been a bit sleep deprived this past week (more on that to come in a future post), so I’m just hoping that I didn’t forget anything major.

Now, I always forget something. My hope is that it’s nothing important.

I was talking with a friend last night about packing strategies. Mine is, about five minutes before I run out the door, I open the suitcase and throw in anything I can think I might want. Her strategy is to start planning months in advance, maximizing efficiency and comfort, and making sure nothing is forgotten.

I’m just about to grab dinner and head to the airport. But I thought I’d make a note that planning in advance, especially for travel, is a virtue I should think about developing one of these days. Or years. Or whatever. I think it would fall under Prudence.

One of my friends describes her life as “the daily grind.” She’s worried that she doesn’t have the joy or enthusiasm for things that she used to. She feels tied down, restricted by the work of just maintaining stuff in her life: job, home, relationships, and so on.

My experience is totally different: I’ve been bouncing all over the place so much in the past few years that I’m soaking up stability and regularity wherever I can find it. It’s comforting to me to punch the clock at work, to have a morning routine, to do things like fill the car with gas or hit the grocery store on the way home.

But I have some distance from the chaos of the last couple years, well, I’ll probably get tired of the daily grind myself. And maybe my friend will find some new inspiration in her life.

The only constant is change

The trick is to find some way to happiness, some way to excellence, regardless of mood or life circumstances or whatever. And this is where virtue comes in.

Virtue is constancy in the midst of change.

Virtue holds up the goal, the ideal, the good, and shows the path to strive for it. The good, happiness, never changes; even though the way to pursue it often does.

Sometimes it takes courage; sometimes it takes self-restraint. Sometimes it means stepping back to a more objective distance; and sometimes it means jumping into immediate action.

Sometimes virtue is sticking with a person through thick and thin, even when you don’t feel like it. And other times, virtue is making a change, even when you’re overwhelmed by fear.

How to know the right thing to do

It’s easiest to see right and wrong in the rear-view mirror: hindsight, as they say, is 20/20. But there are a few things we can do in the moment to make better decisions – even if they’re not always the best:

1. Know the goal: take some time regularly to sort through your priorities. Check your list with someone you trust. Give yourself a clear, concrete image of what you’re aiming for
2. Take inventory: before making a difficult decision, look around and double-check the facts of the situation. Ask if there’s anything you’re missing. Ask if you’re assuming something that isn’t really there.
3. Listen to your heart: if something feels very right, or very wrong, there’s got to be a reason for it. Look for that reason. Don’t dismiss it.
4. Follow your head: your heart can give you good information, but it makes lousy decisions. Leave the actual decision to your reason. Ask yourself how you can move toward your goal, toward happiness, toward excellence, in this situation here and now. And, if you’ve gathered all the facts, trust your reasoning. Do what you have concluded is good, no matter how you feel about it.

For me, it’s the last two that always are the hardest. My feelings cloud my thinking; or my thinking pushes down my feelings. But I keep trying to learn from my mistakes, to go back and try to do better next time. Even small progress is better than no progress at all.

Siobhan asked me if I was ever going to write about anything besides prudence. My short answer is, yes-and-no.

The long answer is that, the way I see it, writing about any one of the virtues really entails writing about them all. Every virtue implies every other, ultimately. The names are simply a matter of focus.

… from a certain point of view…

As far as I know, this approach to virtue is something I made up on my own, so I welcome anybody to correct or refine what I’m saying here.

It seems to me that the virtues are not exactly separate things from each other, but distinct aspects of a virtuous action.

So, any given action – for example, eating a bowl of ice cream (one of my favorite actions!) – can be seen from the perspective of prudence, or justice, or fortitude, or temperance. For that matter, you can look at it from the point of view of faith, or hope, or love.

My thinking is still a bit muddy, but I find the cardinal virtue / theological virtue distinction to be valuable here, showing two major lenses to use in looking at actions.

Cardinal virtues

So, in deciding about eating a bowl of ice cream, one can ask whether it is prudent. That is, is eating ice cream really a good thing for me in my current situation?

One can also ask, is it temperate? That is, are my desires within me in harmony with the truth and facts I’ve prudently discovered? Or, is it courageous? That is, must I overcome obstacles in order to achieve the good that I have prudently discovered?

Finally, one acts. And one asks, is this action just? That is, am I pursuing good in accordance with reality, opposing my false desires and overcoming obstacles?

So, prudence discovers the good; fortitude and temperance clear the way to pursuing that good, one by overcoming external obstacles and the other by opposing internal disorders; and justice acts to pursue the good. All the virtues collaborate in the process of taking action, and any given action is virtuous to the extent that it conforms to all the cardinal virtues.

Theological virtues

I see the theological virtues as a kind of parallel. Faith discovers the good – not merely relying on my own reason, but trusting in the testimony of others. Hope clears the path to the good by putting false desires and external obstacles in proper perspective. And love acts for the good, even by laying down one’s life for one’s beloved.

So the theological virtues build upon the cardinal virtues and express them, not merely from my own individual and human perspective, but from a higher perspective, even a divine perspective.

What about the ice cream?

I understand that the greatest question here may be, “Yeah, but did you eat the ice cream?”

How could you be in any doubt? Ice cream is a form of pure concentrated goodness.

Of course I ate the ice cream!

I was reading an article called “The Difference between Needs and Wants” which to me seemed useful, but not quite on target.

The author cites Aristotle as equating “needs” with “real goods,” i.e., “the things that every human requires for the pursuit of happiness,” and equating “wants” with “apparent goods,” which sometimes are actually bad for people. He goes on to describe how focusing on needs rather than wants will lead to a fuller, happier life.

What’s good and what’s bad?

Don’t get me wrong: I think the article gives basically good advice. But I think he over-simplifies the whole nature of human desire and the objects of our desires. And that can give the wrong idea that “wants” are somehow not “real goods” for us.

One of the fundamentals of Aristotle’s view of nature is that everything that exists is good because existence itself is good. So, if anything exists at all, then it is at least in that minimal way good.

More than that, the idea of “bad” or “evil” is not equal to the idea of “good.” What I mean is that goodness is a real, positive thing that exists. “Badness” or “evil” is not something that is real in itself; it is the absence or the distortion of some real thing – some good thing.

A good example is blindness. Blindness is not a thing in itself; it is only the distortion or destruction of sight. Sight is real, and good. Blindness is nothing except the absence of sight.

Virtue and human desire

Now, desire (and its partner, aversion) is the means by which we sense good and the lack of good. Your eyes see a square of a dark-brown color, and your nose smells a unique combination of sweet and bitter, and your fingers feel a hard smooth texture. In your mind, you combine all these senses into an understanding of the thing itself: a chocolate bar.

But it is desire which judges that chocolate bar to be good or bad. Or rather, it is desire that identifies what is good in the chocolate bar, and what is lacking.

So, you may find yourself with conflicting desires: you know it tastes good, but you also know it will give you a sugar high and subsequent crash, or that it is fattening. In other words, you desire both the flavor of chocolate and the benefits of health.

Thankfully, desire is not the end of the story: our ability to reason enables us to sort out the various good things that we desire, and to make a decision. The trick is to let ourselves be informed by, but not driven by, our desires.

Needs and wants, real and apparent goods

So, everything that we desire is a “real” good, insofar as it exists and has some kind of goodness that we recognize. And everything we desire is an “apparent” good, because it is a good that appears to us. There are goods that we don’t easily recognize (e.g., the value of doing your taxes,) and there are goods whose limitations we overlook (e.g., having another drink with that cute somebody); but desire is always seeking something good.

Prudence means that we let reason sort through all those good things we desire, and search them to figure out if we’re overlooking some limitation or even falsehood about the good we desire. Prudence also applies labels like “need” to goods that we literally cannot live without. Prudence weighs the goods we’d have to give up (time, money, a good night’s sleep) against the good thing we want.

Then, through the virtue of prudence, we can make decisions that we can honestly say are good.

My doctor tells me that it’s not uncommon to feel drowsy in the mid-afternoon, and that either a little snack or a bit of exercise is a decent alternative to a nap. For myself, the soporific tendencies begin around 3:00pm, and a snack will at best delay the lowering of the eyelids.

But today has been a particularly productive day in a number of ways. I solved a tricky network problem for my uncle’s insurance business, reviewed my parents’ taxes from last year in preparation for filing this year’s, finished reading Book IX of Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics, and accomplished a few other little household tasks.

By three in the afternoon, I was certainly feeling sleepy, but I also wanted to keep rolling on this productivity streak. At the very least, I wanted to write a blog entry … but I knew if I sat down at my computer I’d sooner or later drift off into the Land of Nod.

Prudence to the rescue!

So I took stock of my situation. I was sleepy, but not really tired; I wanted to get some more work done, but didn’t have the energy. I wasn’t hungry. I wasn’t even feeling particularly lazy, for once!

Moreover, I’d just been talking with my mother about the taxes, and I knew that both she and I were trying to incorporate exercise as a regular part of our lives.

So I asked her, “How about a walk around the neighborhood?”

As we walked, she asked about this blog and I said that I was planning to write today about the relationship of prudence and justice. I described prudence as the virtue of being in touch with reality, with one’s place in that real situation, and making decisions in accordance with one’s nature.

And it only occurred to me at that point that I had used exactly that process in deciding to ask my mom to take a walk with me.

An action and then a habit

For a long time, I’ve been thinking about prudence, thinking about how to practice it, thinking about how it fits in with the other virtues, thinking … thinking …

Today is the first time I’ve actually caught myself being prudent. I don’t think it’s bragging to say that I’m happy about it. After all, it’s a fairly small act of prudence, and it’s still a long ways from being “second nature” to me. But every action helps to build the habit; and I’m going to remember this little action when I’m faced with future temptations to nap or to do anything else that avoids facing the real world.

After all, I know that I can do it, at least in a small way. And if I can do it, you certainly can as well!

I’ve always loved the beginning of Frank Herbert’s novel, Dune:

A beginning is the time for taking the most delicate care that the balances are correct.

I think this is the instinct behind such things as new year’s resolutions. I know that the ending of one calendar year and the beginning of another is arbitrary. It is no more significant, in and of itself, than a birthday or a full moon. But it brings with it a number of opportunities to make a fresh start.

Financially, for example, the calendar year and the tax year coincide. So it provides a good opportunity to make some major changes in working or spending habits.

Or, there are opportunities for re-connecting with family and friends; Christmas and other holidays have just passed, and most people are thinking fondly – or trying to, anyway – about friends and relations.

And then there is the whole self-improvement culture: already there are countless people trying to make this year the year when they’ll lose some weight, learn Chinese, get on top of the housework, or whatever. This provides a strong social support, and maybe some direct accountability, for making a few changes.

Balance and virtue

In my experience, what causes all these resolutions to fizzle out before January is through is the lack of balance. As the Bene Gesserit wisdom admonishes us, if the beginning is out of balance, the rest will topple over easily.

Here is where the virtues come to the rescue: a little prudence now, in deciding just what changes to make this coming year, will make it clear what actions are truly just (and, for that matter, loving) and will prepare us to act with courage and/or moderation when needed.

Prudence, remember, is the virtue of recognizing what the situation really is, and what my particular place in that situation is; it is the virtue of being in touch with reality.

The first step of prudence is to look at the practical, concrete, feet-on-the-ground situation. Here’s mine, in a nutshell:

• I have a temporary, part-time job that doesn’t quite cover all my expenses
• I’m therefore somewhat financially dependent on family, but I’m not homeless or starving
• I have the luxury of free internet access and affordable transportation
• I have some very good friends who care deeply for me
• I’m free of any major debt
• I have a ton of ideas for articles and stories, but have so far lacked the discipline to complete them

How I plan to grow in virtue next year

So, based on the situation, it seems to me that I need to man up and act with a little more self-discipline this coming year. I need to focus on finding full-time employment so that I don’t have to mooch off the fam. And I need to focus on putting the time and effort into research and writing. (These fit in nicely, actually, with last year’s resolutions: pray, learn, serve.)

Grand ideals! Now, how to do it? I think I’ll use a few primary tools that have worked well in the past:

1. Make a schedule
2. Be accountable to a friend
3. Expect progress, not perfection

The schedule is itself a tool of prudence: it’s a concrete look at the situation and the needs of each particular day. The accountability to a friend acknowledges that I’m pretty weak in the self-motivation category; it’s easier when I know that someone else knows my goals and successes and failures. And keeping expectations realistic should cut off the elation of a new idea as well as the despair of a failure.

So, I plan to grow in virtue, mainly in prudence, by practicing prudence. I invite you to do the same!

When I started this project, I used the image of a journey to describe growth in virtue. Every step takes you closer to your destination, and every step matters, and so on.

Lately, though, another image has been coming to mind: building a house. First, you have to lay the foundation, then erect the frame structure, then hang the walls, and the plumbing and wiring, and so on and so forth. If any of the major elements are missing, the whole house collapses. But there are also lots of choices, such as the kind of siding or roofing material, the color, whether there’s a deck or not; and, while these don’t affect the basic structure, they do add character to the house. They make it unique.

Likewise with virtue: some virtues are absolutely necessary. They’re called cardinal virtues for a reason. No one’s life will remain standing without a foundation of prudence, a strong frame of justice, fortitude to stand against the storm and temperance to hold the different parts of the structure in right relationship to each other.

Other choices and actions are more individual: virtues of music or art, virtues of law or medicine or craftsmanship, virtues of humor and wit, and so on. These develop one’s character – not to make us more human in the basic sense, but to make us more ourselves. They make us to be better at being this person.

I don’t think I’ll abandon the journey image. It still resonates with me on many levels: the importance of each step, of putting one foot in front of the other; the time that it takes to reach a destination, and the beauty of all the things you can see along the way.

But, at the very least, I’ve found another image to add to my vocabulary. It seems to be working for me. I hope it works for you as well.