“Put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.”
(Ephesians 4:24)

Virtue – practicing the habits of heart and life that point toward the true goal of human existence – lies at the heart of the challenge of Christian behavior.
(NT Wright)

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This is the second in a series of posts on empirical practices for re-formation of the soul.  I mentioned last time that this is an integrated process and any attempt to divide it is necessarily arbitrary.  Still, there is some value in breaking it down and so I intend to address four interrelated aspects: (1) Putting on virtues of the new self; (2) Putting off vices of the old self; (3) Renewing the mind; and (4) Growing through suffering.

In this post I write about practices for putting on virtues.

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Here is one straight forward practice suggested by Christian Psychiatrist Curt Thompson, M.D. in his book, “Anatomy of the Soul.”

Choose one of the nouns listed as the outgrowth of a Spirt-filled life in Galatians 5:22 (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control).  Focus your attention on that word daily, throughout the day.  Feel free to create images in your mind that represent that word.
Dedicate seven consecutive days to focus on each word, continuing to cycle through all nine on an ongoing basis. Whenever you encounter another person or sense an emotional shift that tempts to take you down the low road, allow yourself to be immersed in your awareness of your word for the day.  Be mindful of how that word is calling you to reflect and manifest it in that moment – especially when your mind is screaming for you to do just the opposite.  Ask yourself how you can be a conduit of joy peace, patience, or gentleness in this moment. 

I have been following this practice for over two years and the impact has been greater than the prior twenty years.  Perhaps the most helpful suggestion I can give you is to read no more and simply start where I did in November 2022 and learn from your own experience.  This is the empirical way – learning by doing.

There is nothing inherently right or wrong with focusing on the nine virtues in Galatians 5:22.  There are other passages in Scripture that are similarly helpful to practice.  For example, in Colossians 3:12, Paul instructs us to clothe ourselves with, “compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience,” and he also mentions bearing with each other, forgiveness, and love.   In Ephesians 4, he tells us to put on the virtues of speaking truthfully, service, kindness, compassion, and forgiveness.  In 1 Thessalonians 5: 13-18, he directs us to the virtues of love, peace, patience, goodness, and thankfulness.  Jesus commands us at various places in the Gospels to virtues such as, speaking the truth, service, forgiveness, peace, generosity, and of course love.  Compiling one’s own list from these and other commands in Scripture is another option.  The idea is to find a starting point.

The number of virtues is not critical.  It is better to stay committed to a few than be lukewarm with many.  Even the practice of a single virtue can be beneficial.  One that I have found useful is gratitude, which comes from Paul’s command to, “give thanks in all circumstances.” (1 Thessalonians 5:18)  In many ways gratitude is the on-ramp to the other virtues, which lead to love.  The practice of gratitude opens our hearts and minds to all the unearned gifts we have – life, friends, health, sustenance, providers, and the like.  When we begin to take a deliberate look at such things, we discover how much we often take for granted.  With increasing awareness, our world gets bigger, and our hearts soften.  The practice of gratitude shifts our focus from want to abundance, from entitlement to gift, and from ourselves to others. This can be the first step in learning the meaning of love.  Ronald Rolheiser describes it thus, “Gratitude is the root of all virtue.  It lies at the base of love and charity.  Scripture always and everywhere makes this point.”  For those interested in getting deeper insights into this practice, Ann Voskamp’s “One Thousand Gifts” is an excellent resource.

For the remainer of this post I will share some things I have learned from my practice.  I don’t presume these to be normative because of the uniqueness of everyone’s spiritual journey.  However, I believe some of them may be illuminating.

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The value of practice is captured in the words of that great philosopher Yogi Berra who said, “in theory there is no difference between theory and practice, in practice there is.”  Theory has its place, but practice triumphs over theory in re-formation of the soul.  We read the words of Jesus and understand most of them, conceptually at least.  But to really understand their import and how to live them out, we have to do just that – learn by trying to live them out.  In other words, learn by practice.

Having practiced nine virtues on a rotating basis as long as I have, there is much that I could write.  Indeed, there are over seventy pages of notes in my journal.  But as my goal is simply an overview of some of the challenges and revelations I have experienced, I will use my practice of patience as illustrative.  But with the understanding that there are analogs in each of the other virtues.

The Habitual Struggle

To be clear, the purpose of practicing a virtue is to make it a heart value resulting in a habit, an automatic response.  When this occurs, the virtue we display fits seamlessly with our internal character and is done with peace and pleasure.  But until a habit settles into the heart and becomes second nature, there will always be tension between how we are acting and what we are feeling.  This was my experience with patience.  There were times when I tried to remain patient and calm on the outside but was secretly churning on the inside.  As far as I can tell, tension like this is unavoidable precisely because the virtue has not settled into my heart.  And making it a heart value is, of course, the entire reason for practicing a virtue in the first place.  Over time, with repetition and perseverance, it can become second nature.

Some writers like Jonathan R. Bailey in “The Eternal Journey” have commented on this tension.

“The vital thing to know if we’re to start breaking vices and building virtue is that we can’t do it by trying to act virtuous.  And here’s where the old Aristotelian concept of acting from virtue versus acting according to virtue can help.  When we act according to virtue, we are trying.  We are hoping to do something we know we ought to do or should do – we’re performing the virtuous act out of duty.”

I agree with Bailey that the goal is to act from virtue, meaning that it comes from our heart, it is our settled character. Only in this way can the tension between acting and feeling be resolved.  But where I strongly disagree with Baily is his assertion that we can’t build virtue by trying to act according to the virtue.  This is nuts!  How else are we going to form a habit if we don’t first practice it?  This literally goes to the heart of the matter.  Either we practice virtues as commanded in Scripture, or we don’t.  Each has predictable consequences.  I don’t enjoy the tension, but I know of no other way re-formation of the soul will occur.

Focus

Early on I found it difficult to stay focused on a virtue throughout an entire day.  Although I started the practice with great enthusiasm, which I have not lost, there have been days when I hardly thought about that week’s virtue, particularly in the first year.  I have addressed this in several ways.  Every morning during my quiet time I think about the virtue and any failures, successes, and general observations from the prior day.  I almost always journal my observations and then think about the day ahead.  I also had a local artisan engrave a set of plaques (like the one in the photo) with each virtue.  I swap these out every Sunday morning and keep it prominently displayed for the week as a reminder whenever I pass it.  I find it helpful as well to think about the virtue before an interaction or meeting someone.  In this way I am more conscious to embody it.

Fatigue

Fatigue and/or feeling unwell are red flags for my practice of patience.  Part of my mind says this isn’t so and I am in control.  But this is belied by the reality that I really am more impatient when not feeling myself.  Pat can surely attest to this.  Ideally I would seek rest at such times, but this is not always possible.  So my solution when fatigued is to pull back as much as possible from interacting with others, and avoid potential conflicts.  Simply being aware of when I am most vulnerable has helped.

Conviction

Often what has been revealed during my practice has been hard to look at, if not downright discouraging.  Of course, this also shows the importance of the discipline.  For example, I was initially surprised by how frequently I was not patient – delays, interruptions, and being ignored – to mention a few.  Deeply rooted in my soul, they have continually strained my resolve to be patient.  It is one thing to be enthusiastic about patience in the abstract.  Much less so when my patience is actually put to the test.  It reminds me of something As C.S. Lewis once said about forgiveness, “Everyone says forgiveness is a lovely idea until they have something to forgive.”  I can say the same thing about patience.  But even more profoundly I have questioned whether I really believed patience is a good thing.  It was like hearing the serpent in the Garden, “Did God really say …?”  This forced me to look into the deepest recesses of my soul and my true convictions about what I honestly felt about the importance and value of patience.

Injustice

The practice of patience also revealed how often I make excuses, particularly when I am the “victim” of a perceived injustice – “She is making me late,” “He cut me off in traffic,” “They are giving me the runaround,” “It just isn’t fair,” etc.  This has sorely tested my resolve to stay the course.  It is a non-trivial matter because justice is an important value, and I rebel at any injustice – particularly when I am on the receiving end.  I hate being wronged.  But this is really the tip of the sword when thinking about Jesus’ teaching on forgiveness and dying to ourselves.  In fact, I could argue that concerns about being done an injustice (large or small) are the greatest obstacle to patience because I secretly harbor the belief that injustice justifies sweeping all other values aside.  Upon reflection, however, there is a deeper issue at work here, which is pride.

Pride

Pride is a constant presence in my spiritual practice, not to mention every aspect of my life – spiritual or otherwise.  Every virtue, every aspect of love, is opposed by my ego – my focus on me rather than others.  Psychologists call this the “egocentric predicament,” which is the natural human condition of being immediately aware only of one’s own thoughts and feelings.  The Bible calls it pride, which CS Lewis refers to as, “the great sin.”  It is relatively easy for me to embody a virtue when I have not been done an injustice, when I am feeling good, when I am rested, when I am treated well, and so forth and so on.  This focus on “I” is what makes the re-formation of the soul so hard.  It also brings home Jesus’ words, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.” (Luke 9:23)  The practice of patience requires that I give up something.  And even the smallest act of patience can feel like something in me is dying.  So much could be written about the effect of pride on the practice of virtues, but I believe real understanding and growth only occurs when practice exposes the pain of pride offended.  It’s here where love starts.

Love

Over time the virtues have seemed to merge.  For example, to practice patience is also to practice kindness and goodness, both of which take self-control and faithfulness, which lead to peace and joy.  Although they emphasize different qualities, all are manifestations of love, which is the greatest commandment of Jesus and the ultimate goal of Christian spiritual formation.  It is by focusing on these virtues one at a time that we discover just how challenging and illusive is Christlike love.  In The Restless Heart, Ronald Rolheiser writes,

“Real love – that is, altruistic love, the type described by Jesus and the New Testament – does not come naturally to us.  Nobody falls into love!  Love is always the result of some effort and some sacrifice, of some bleeding and some crying.  It is the result of some willingness on a person’s part to be hung up on a cross and to die a little.  Only three types of persons think that real love is easy:  those who are already saints, who through long years of painful practice have made love a habit; manipulators, who have confused their own self-gratification with genuine love; and unrealistic dreamers, who do not know what they are talking about.  Tainted as we are by our own self-concern, genuine love is very hard to attain, and especially to sustain.”

With love being our ultimate goal, we must press through all of the challenges until we begin to experience the fruit of new heart within us.

Small Victories

Notwithstanding the impediments to learning the virtues of love, there are also wonderful moments of grace and peace that can be frightfully encouraging.  I have experienced many over the past two years, including the following.  Pat and I were on an overnight flight from Dulles to Zürich and on to Skopje.  We took off more or less on time, but about 1½ hours into the flight the pilot came over the cabin speaker and announced that there was a mechanical problem, and we were returning to Dulles.  Three hours plus several more on ground put us way behind schedule.  Predictably, by the time we finally arrived in Zürich the next morning we had missed our connecting flight to Skopje.  This is the kind of incident that in the past would have sent my blood pressure soaring as I freaked out.  But not this time because the weekly virtue I was practicing was patience.  I was truly very relaxed during the entire incident, which was unlike my typical response.  Not only was I at ease, but my patience helped Pat to relax as well as she did not have to endure my usual frustration and griping.  A small victory to be sure, but one that keeps me yearning for more.

The virtues we practice are the virtues of love.  Pure and simple.  They are like a sonnet that we memorize and recite every night to our beloved as they are falling asleep.  Or like a dream that has us floating free from chains that have weighted us down far too long.  Or even like a gently rocking boat on the bank of a river that we quietly slip from its mooring, lightly jump in as we push off from shore, and crossover.

S