What is Virtue?

A look at virtue through the first two chapters of After We Believe by N. T. Wright

We desire quality. We want well-made clothes, delicious, healthy food, and a well-decorated, home. We place such an emphasis on quality in our material goods. But do we desire to possess quality in our character as well? Does our internal character hold up in the face of daily challenges and difficulties? This is the essence of a virtuous life.

In homemaking, there are many opportunities to test our character. This is especially true if you have little ones! They have a way of drawing out how you really feel about the situation. While my desire is to respond to them with virtue, I must admit it rarely happens. Nevertheless, a virtuous home is my dream. It isn’t virtuous yet, but this is my goal that I am striving for as a homemaker.

I long to have a home overflowing with:

• Love
• Wisdom
• Happiness
• Peace
• Humility
• Compassion
• Perseverance
• Elegance

These virtues are how I want my home to be described. If you came to my home, they are what I want you to leave with. If we met in the store, this is the impression I want to leave with you.

I am not there yet, and neither is my home. Frankly, I find it difficult to know exactly how to build this kind of life for my family and others. Where should I begin? How do I build a life of character?

The first stop in my journey is this book After We Believe: Why Christian Character Matters by N. T. Wright.

It begins with the question, “Why we are still on earth if we have already acquired that which our soul desperately needs?” Why are we not taken to heaven after our conversion? How do we live now that we believe?

The initial answers are on page 33:

• The goal of why we are here is to live a happy, fully flourishing life.
• The path that leads us there is the virtues.
• We get there by practicing the virtues over and over again until we have mastered them and they are second nature to us.

We are here to flourish, to excel at being human, to grow into our full potential.

It begins with…

A Transformation of Character

Virtue requires us to be changed. I think, we would all agree that no matter how hard we try, none of us have made it to the top. None of us are fully virtuous. We all know that there are things we need to work on. To be virtuous, we have to undergo a process of transformation where our habits and minds change (p. 16).

It isn’t that we choose to be virtuous and all of a sudden we are virtuous. It is continually choosing virtuous behavior every day that changes us over time.

To be virtuous, the way we act and live must change over time.

A practice of difficult things

Being virtuous is far from easy. I have a toddler and it is very hard not to get frustrated as he is learning to talk. I can’t fully understand what he is trying to say sometimes and it tries my patience daily.

He is so helpful, too. The other day, we were putting away laundry. I grabbed the bathroom towels and washcloths and went to go put them away. In his sweet way, he wanted to help so he grabbed the kitchen towels and followed me. They slipped from his hands and fell all around the toilet. That is not all though, for whatever reason, he decided that one of them belonged in the toilet.

Yes, sadness. All my hard work washing the laundry and now I’m fishing what once was clean out of the toilet to go and wash it…..again. I was not virtuous in that moment.

It would be silly to “throw in the towel” (sorry, I couldn’t resist) and tell myself that its all over. I will never be a virtuous mom and I will never make a virtuous home.

Virtue requires me to practice difficult things until they become second nature (p.23).

A Discipline of the Mind

It is so hard to discipline your mind. In the moment, there is nothing glorious about exercising your mind. I would much rather watch a movie or play a game than exercise my mind. It is to easy to not want to, but just because it is hard does not mean it won’t be good for me.

There is a story in this book where a father had to keep anxious thoughts out of his mind in order to focus and rescue his daughter(p. 22). Most of us at some point have been in an emergency situation like this where we have to think clearly and act quickly. Character in these situations does not come by accident. It is the result of discipline.

Training of any kind does not easily tempt us, but it is very necessary for us to flourish.

An Understanding of Being fully Human

Are we living up to our potential? Are we thriving and flourishing as God created us to? We each have our gifts and talents. Are we developing what we have been given and mastering skills in areas where we need to grow? (p. 25)

Talk about conviction! I used to play the piano, sketch, and read books more often, but since I have had children, those things have been pushed aside in order to tend to my little ones and the house keeping. How will I find time to master one of these if not all?

Can I learn to be patient, kind, and compassionate while raising children and making a home? How long will it take?

Acquiring the Habits of Virtue

How do you start exercising virtue in our lives? The author compares acquiring virtue to learning a new sport, musical instrument, or language (p. 39). The goal is to practice until the skills become second nature to you so that when you preform, it comes naturally for you to make a winning shot, play a sweet melody, or converse with someone.

Often, we see the end product of other peoples hard work and wish we could do that, but instead of practicing the necessary skills until we have mastered them like they did, we expect the mastery to come naturally without putting in the hours.

Pursue virtue with a conscious effort. It doesn’t come naturally. It’s work.

Review

Before we all get discouraged about all the extra work it sounds like we need to be doing on top of everything else, let’s recap what N. T. Wright said:

• The goal of why we are here is to live a happy, fully flourishing life.
• The path that leads us there is the virtues.
• We get there by practicing the virtues over and over again until we have mastered them and they are second nature to us.

Now for the practical.

As mom’s, we do not have to go looking for opportunities to practice being virtuous. They have a way of finding us, but we ought to strive our hardest in those moments to act and think with character. Someday it will be second nature, but for now, we must practice.

What are you going to work on this week? What are you going to work on mastering?

My goal is to pick up playing the piano again. I have a million other things to do, but I figured some practice is better than none. Even if I can only give five to ten minutes several times a day (with me practicing on the lower half while my son bangs on the top half), I will still be farther along than if I did none at all.