Tag Archives: virtue

The challenges of reality.

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“There is something which unites magic and applied science while separating both from the wisdom of earlier ages. For the wise men of old the cardinal problem had been how to conform the soul to reality, and the solution had been knowledge, self-discipline, and virtue. For magic and applied science alike the problem is how to subdue reality to the wishes of men: the solution is a technique; and both, in the practice of this technique, are ready to do things hitherto regarded as disgusting and impious—such as digging up and mutilating the dead.”

-C.S. Lewis in The Abolition of Man

We are enthralled and conflicted.

culture, quotes, , , , , ,

“It’s natural for a human being to have conflicted feelings, for feelings are mostly the result of the disordered passions to which we are enthralled…. Each feeling is real, but in no way are sentiments the proper ground for making decisions, much less governing a society and doing justice. The reign of sentimentality is the reason behind the dominance of public shaming as an attempted moral practice.”

-Father Stephen Freeman, from this article: on Feelings

Pagans and Inverted Victorians

church, history, home, quotes, ,

This short piece from the Touchstone journal compares the perspectives and lifestyles of pagans, early Christians, and feminists regarding home and virtue — and disconnections that rob us of our full humanity.

Home Remodeling by Peter Leithart

In the ancient world, household and city were confined to opposite corners. The inner space of the household was for women and children, while the open space of the city was for men. Men gained honor and displayed their prowess in the forum and on the battlefield, places where only men could go. Alasdair MacIntyre has pointed out that virtue for Homer was military prowess, and the etymological connection between the Latin “vir” (man) and “virtus” (virtue) is no accident.

English theologian John Milbank has argued that the social revolution of Christianity broke down this distinction. The church is both household and city, Christians both brothers and fellow citizens. As the gospel penetrated late antique culture, the household itself, along with its work and its child-rearing, was increasingly valorized, producing what to ancient paganism would have been the oxymoron of the “virtuous woman.”

The deep paganism of modern feminism is evident in the effort to reverse that Christian achievement. Many feminists feel that they cannot flourish in the cramped space of the home. To be fully human, they must abandon the hearth and crib to take part in the agon [contest] of the male world outside.

In developing this neo-pagan social cartography, however, feminists are often reacting against a reversal that had taken place earlier within Christian culture. Nineteenth-century sentimental domesticity joined with fascination for the classics to re-divide household and city. From this angle, feminists look less like radicals than like inverted Victorians.

In any case, the Christian response to the whole mess seems clear: to reaffirm the original Christian revolution by insisting that, for both men and women, the household is a school of virtue.

Touchstone, Sept-Oct 2010

Silence and Music

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My last post remembering Saint Herman prompted Pom Pom to ask me if I had read The Music of Silence, book she had just received in the mail. I haven’t read such a book, so I googled it and immediately have several tangents to run along now. I don’t know if she meant this memoir of Andrea Bocelli, or this one about singing the Hours or services of the church through the day in Gregorian Chant.

One reviewer wrote of the latter book:

“Nothing is as ordinary, or as sacred, as time. Far from being an infinitesimally small unit of measurement or a means of separating one event from another, time provides the means by which the still, small, silent voice of God may be heard.”

Silence….hmmm….I know so little of it.

When I read about music, silence, solitude, it can be an inspiration and a reminder, but my readings and thinkings are typically like so many rabbit trails, to use a term that hints at the fun of scurrying from one author or thought to another. A rabbit is doing what he was made to do, and glorifies God by it. I was made to live by the Holy Spirit in communion with my Creator.

So I need to STOP on the trail and pray–and maybe even get off the trail sometimes! It wasn’t books and ideas that made it possible for Father Herman to sing with the angels. It was prayer. The kind of prayer St Isaac of Syria is talking about when he says:

“The wisdom of the Holy Spirit is much greater than the wisdom of the entire world. Within the wisdom of the Holy Spirit, silence prevails; the wisdom of the world, however, goes astray into idle talk.”

My mind is given to talking idly with itself. So much of my remembering of my Savior is like the awareness I might have of an earthly friend when she is in the room with me, but I am not paying close attention. I might hear her talking without really listening, I might even speak with her–but not make eye contact.

Don’t we all have this weakness in our human condition, worsened by modern life, that we can’t settle our minds down firmly even when in prayer? Abba Dorotheus of Gaza says:

“Just as it is easier to sin in thought than in deed, correspondingly, it is more difficult to struggle with thoughts than with deeds.”

But C.S. Lewis encourages us:

“Virtue–even attempted virtue [I hope this includes attempted prayer]–brings light; indulgence brings fog.”

So I will keep struggling in prayer, to push past the distractions, to listen for the Silence that is God’s music.

It’s not the wonderful blog posts and the writers of them that are my problem. Nor my own writing, because just the discipline of organizing the chaos at least gets me on the road to taking every thought captive to Christ, though my readers might legitimately question how often I get to my destination. With God’s help, I know His presence and see His working in the world by the goings-on of the blogosphere and the piles of books throughout my house. Glory to God for all things! Lord, have mercy!

One more rabbit trail, leading quickly to the spot where all those paths ought eventually to end up, was brought to my attention this month, a poem by George Herbert:

Christmas

The shepherds sing;
and shall I silent be?
My God, no hymn for Thee?
My soul’s a shepherd too;
a flock it feeds
Of thoughts, and words, and deeds.
The pasture is Thy word:
the streams, Thy grace,
Enriching all the place.
Shepherd and flock shall sing,
and all my powers
Outsing the daylight hours.
Then will we chide the sun for letting night
Take up his place and right:
We sing one common Lord;
wherefore he should
Himself the candle hold.

I will go searching, till I find a sun
Shall stay, till we have done;
A willing shiner, that shall shine as gladly,
As frost-nipped suns look sadly.
Then will we sing, and shine all our own day,
And one another pay:
His beams shall cheer my breast, and both so twine,
Till ev’n His beams sing, and my music shine.

-George Herbert