Monthly Archives: April 2017

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greed

Virtues and views, 7 sins and friends, Blogging from A to Z. Last year I chose gluttony for the letter g, but greed is also there. Charity is listed as the virtue to oppose the sin of greed. How interesting, because I did not have those paired! I think of generosity as the opposite of greed, but I do understand placing charity there.

Webster 1913 Greed:

An eager desire or longing; greediness; as, a greed of gain.

Dictionary.com 2017 Greed:

noun

1. excessive or rapacious desire, especially for wealth or possessions.

Webster 1913 Charity

1. Love; universal benevolence; good will.

Now abideth faith, hope, charity, three; but the greatest of these is charity. 1. Cor. xiii. 13.

They, at least, are little to be envied, in whose hearts the great charities . . . lie dead. Ruskin.

With malice towards none, with charity for all. Lincoln.

2. Liberality in judging of men and their actions; a disposition which inclines men to put the best construction on the words and actions of others.

The highest exercise of charity is charity towards the uncharitable. Buckminster.

3. Liberality to the poor and the suffering, to benevolent institutions, or to worthy causes; generosity.

The heathen poet, in commending the charity of Dido to the Trojans, spake like a Christian. Dryden.

4. Whatever is bestowed gratuitously on the needy or suffering for their relief; alms; any act of kindness.

She did ill then to refuse her a charity. L’Estrange.

5. A charitable institution, or a gift to create and support such an institution; as, Lady Margaret’s charity.

6. pl. Law Eleemosynary appointments [grants or devises] including relief of the poor or friendless, education, religious culture, and public institutions.

The charities that soothe, and heal, and bless, Are scattered at the feet of man like flowers. Wordsworth.

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So why is charity the virtue to balance greed? I am thinking of the Buddhist prayer: may all beings be safe. May all beings be peaceful. May all beings experience loving kindness. May all beings be free.

All beings. Not just the virtuous, not just the good, not the people of one race or one religion or one country. All beings and I think that is what charity and love really are. When we say “Not those kind of people!” we are separating and discriminating and labeling and we choose to keep charity from them: that is greed, too. More for us, less for them. They are bad, wrong, different, so we don’t have to share with them.

The Buddhist prayer is to be practiced towards a loved one, then a friend, then an acquaintance, then a stranger, someone we dislike, some one who has hurt us, and someone that we think (and here is gossip) is evil….progressively harder.

But what if someone HAS hurt us? How do we practice charity there?  Do we have to?

I return to a sermon on forgiveness: here, by Reverend Bruce Bode:

“Says Dr. Lewis Smedes in his book, Forgive and Forget:

When you forgive, you heal your hate for the person who created that reality. But you do not change the facts. And you do not undo all of their consequences. The dead stay dead; the wounded are often still crippled.”

Reverend Bode goes on to say:

“While I’m talking about what forgiveness is not, let me also make a distinction between forgiveness and reconciliation. The distinction is this: forgiveness opens the possibility of reconciliation with another, but it does not necessarily lead to reconciliation, and it is certainly not the same thing as reconciliation.

One can forgive and not reconcile. This is because reconciliation demands something from the other side, whereas forgiveness has to do with an internal process within a person.”

Charity, then, is more complicated than generosity, than romantic love, than love for one’s family and friends and community. It is the ideal of loving everyone, even those who have harmed us. Our ideal is for charity and forgiveness: and a hope for reconciliation. Charity is the opposite of greed.

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faith

I am looking for my post from last year for f and it looks like I skipped f! Oh, woe is me! I thought I had completed the A to Z Challenge!

F for faith. Faith is one of the Seven Heavenly Virtues: prudence, justice, temperance and fortitude, faith, hope and charity. This is a different list from one that was written later to match and oppose the Seven Sins: chastity, temperance, charity, diligence, patience, kindness and humility.

Both lists have charity and temperance in common, but the rest differ. Which list appeals to you most? If we combine them then we have 12 virtues.

I chose the 7 Sins last year as a theme to write about emotions. We don’t use the virtues as emotions as much. Who says “I am feeling diligent, temperant, just?”

And for faith, I walked two days ago. This tree was just starting to bud out: faith that spring will return, hope will return, justice will return, love will return, after the winter, after the war, after death and darkness and loss. Faith is spring and buds and flowers and the new green hope and joy.

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ease

Feeling ease. Is that a virtue or a vice? What makes you feel at ease or relax or stretch langourously? Boa cat is enjoying spring sun through the window and warm fur on warm velvet.

For the Blogging from A to Z Challenge, last year I chose envy. This year ease and rest and letting the muscles warm and stretch in the sun. I wish for some ease for all the children in the world, in frightening places or with frightening people, for some time of rest and warmth and safety and ease….

I am supposed to be at letter G today…. I will have to stop lying in the sun and get moving….it’s cloudy today anyhow.

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diligence

I am a day behind on the A to Z Challenge but that’s ok! I started a day late anyhow….D for diligence. One of the 7 virtues. This is from the 7 Heavenly Virtues, a different list from the cardinal and theological virtues. Bravery is not on the Heavenly list. Diligence is the match for the sin “sloth“. This virtue does not double as an emotion, just as chastity does not double as an emotion. I can feel diligent but it’s not like saying, “I am a sloth today! I feel totally lazy!”

The photograph is from 2011, my daughter and another member of the synchronized swimming team. My daughter started at age 7 and could barely swim one length of the pool, much less two. She fell in love with it and continued until the team disbanded, and then moved on to swim team. It is a spectacularly difficult sport, to dance upside down in the water. They score on the Olympic scale right from the start, earning scores of 1 or 2 out of 10.

Here they are leading a land drill, with younger team members in the water. This is at a meet, so they are ready with their suits and hair pieces for the team performance.

There are so many things that can be approached with diligence that lead to the joy of doing something well and with one’s entire heart…..

 Musicians work with great diligence too….here.

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chastity

There is not ONE list of Seven Virtues. One list contains courage and another chastity. Chastity is on the list that matches the Seven Sins: so chastity is the opposite of lust.

Here is a definition from Webster 1913:

1. The state of being chaste; purity of body; freedom from unlawful sexual intercourse.

She . . . hath preserved her spotless chastity. T. Carew.

2. Moral purity.

So dear to heaven is saintly chastity, That, when a soul is found sincerely so A thousand liveried angels lackey her. Milton.

3. The unmarried life; celibacy.

[Obs.]

Chaucer.

4. Literature & Art

Chasteness.

“Freedom from unlawful sexual intercourse”? That would imply freedom from being sexually assaulted or raped, wouldn’t it?  That is a bit different from the definition of chastity from dictionary.com now:

noun
1. the state or quality of being chaste

 

And so I look up chaste:

adjective, chaster, chastest.

1. refraining from sexual intercourse that is regarded as contrary to morality or religion; virtuous.
2. virgin.
3. not engaging in sexual relations; celibate.

4. free from obscenity; decent:

chaste conversation.

5. undefiled or stainless:

chaste, white snow.
6. pure in style; not excessively ornamented; simple.
7. Obsolete. unmarried.
I hear that there are men in our government who will not dine alone with a woman other than their wife. I am at the point where I want to say, if a man can’t control his libido and take responsibility for his own chastity, I don’t think he should be allowed a job in our government and I certainly don’t think he should have any power over whether we go to war. He has no self control around women? He fears a woman tempting him? He thinks women are angels who preserve chastity or devils who tempt? Out with him, fire him, impeach him. Women are people just as men are and I am tired of men wanting women to carry the responsibility for morality. Learn to control yourself. Chastity is YOUR responsibility as a civilized human being, and if you can’t do it, step down.
When I chose my A to Z theme as 7 Sins and friends last year, I was thinking of the sins as emotions: Pride, Envy, Gluttony, Lust, Anger, Greed and Sloth. I don’t think of chastity as the opposite of lust: I would think of the opposite of lust as disinterest in sexual activity. So chastity is not a word that I would think of as an emotion. The “moral purity” and “undefiled or stainless” definitions seem more about thoughts than about emotions. It interests me that from 1913 to the present the definition has changed from celibacy to virgin because those words have different meanings to me. One could be celibate and not a virgin, and one could also be “undefiled or stainless” and be attacked. I think that I am barely scratching the surface of complex archetypes and ideas that change.
The photograph is my plum tree, five days after the previous photograph. I am glad that my plum tree is not chaste and produces such beautiful blossoms and plums.
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bravery

There is more than one list of seven virtues. Courage, or bravery, goes back to Aristotle and Plato as one of the four cardinal virtues.

What is bravery to you? An extreme sport? A warrior?

My sister endured cancer treatment for 7 years, over 30 rounds of chemotherapy. She said, “People say I am brave, but they don’t understand. I don’t have a choice. It’s do the therapy or die.” It’s still brave, though, isn’t it.

The person who comes to my mind for bravery is a woman, a long time ago. She spoke Spanish and we had a translator. Her son had had rheumatic fever and they had gone to the pediatric cardiologist for the yearly visit. Her son had a damaged heart valve that was getting worse. He was somewhere between 9 and 12.

“The heart doctor says he needs surgery. He needs the valve replaced. But the heart doctor said he could die in surgery.” she said.

I read the notes and the heart ultrasound. “The heart valve is leaking more and more. If he doesn’t have the surgery it will damage his heart. He will be able to do less and less and then he will die. If he has the surgery, there is a small chance that he will die. But if he doesn’t, he will be able to grow and to run and to be active.”

She said, “I am so afraid.” But she returned to the pediatric cardiologist. And he got through the valve replacement surgery and did fine.

That is courage to me. The parents who take chances for their children: get into boats to escape war. Search for treatments. Fight for their home, their children, their loved ones. It is both men and women, mothers and fathers, grandmothers and grandfathers, and people who have no blood relation to a child that they reach out to help. Adoption, volunteering in schools, supporting a student, supporting an organization that helps children grow and thrive.

For the A to Z challenge….and last year.

 

 

 

 

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ardor

“the flowers that bloom in the spring, tra, la!”

I walk uptown today in the sun and the birds and I are out in the sun. It is warm and just amazing. There are flowers everywhere. Arriving home I change to bike gear and then it’s cloudy again. I change out and here is the sun. I will do the A to Z after all, because I am posting daily anyhow and the alphabet trickles round my thoughts. A, a day, a day late, arduous or ardor?

The birds and I are
slain by the sun: welcome
ardor spring flowers

My topic is Virtues and Views….there are Seven Virtues just as there are Seven Sins. Last year I wrote about a different feeling each day. Are the virtues feelings? And there is more than one list of virtues….

 

 

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new growth

I’ve been thinking about the A to Z challenge again. I did it last year, with 7 sins and friends. I wrote about an emotion each day…. and I planned to do it this year starting with the 7 virtues. Bet you can’t name as many virtues as sins…. though I don’t think any of the emotions are sins. They are part of us. They are part of the way we respond to the world and survive. We have to learn to pay attention to them and not label any of them as negative or bad. We cannot excise grief or fear or anger from our psyche and remain human. Instead we need to learn to be curious about each emotion….

…..and there has been a shift in my life, three parts all shifting at once, this week. It is very odd to have all three go at once. I may leave the virtues until next year, because this sudden freedom is strange, peculiar, unfamiliar…. I need to expand in it and explore it….

New growth….