Today I share wisdom from “Contemplify,” a monthly, very thought provoking and entertaining post I get in my email inbox. (hello@contemplify.com). I have taken license to cut and paste a little.

I enjoy messages like this that call me back to the important. And this one just seems timely for me—perhaps it is also for you. Blessings!

Contemplify:

My home tradition, Christianity, has championed four cardinal virtues: wisdom, justice, fortitude, and temperance. Sounds underwhelming to some, but the exemplars of these virtues were vivacious change agents. They lavishly personified these virtues in their daily lives. Over the arch of history I admire the temperance of the Desert Fathers and Mothers, the wisdom of Hildegaard of Bingen, the justice of Francis and Clare, and the fortitude of Tertullian. These are ancestral examples, but modern ones are aplenty; Bryan Stevenson (justice), John Lewis (fortitude), Beyonce (wisdom), and John Dear (temperance). The visible fruit is half the story. The daily participation in Mystery’s doing and undoing is the creative art of cultivating virtue for the sake of resounding the Divine within. 

• Wisdom: I am attending to the wisdom of the ancestors who have endured through pandemics, abject systemic suffering, and immersive exterior solitude. Folks who faced the heat of suffering while also tending to the coals of an inner fire. Hence my reading has focused on Julian of Norwich, Henry David Thoreau, Frederick Douglass, Marcus Aurelius, Plotinus and the like. Asking myself questions like, how did Julian sustain her joy in God during the relentless bubonic plague? What does it mean that Douglass’ courage inspires me and makes me question the strength of my own backbone?
• Temperance: This virtue is often regulated to abstaining from alcohol, but it is so much more. Temperance is practicing restraint or self-control for the sake of the whole. In this practice of self limitation a wellspring of potential disrupts passive consumption. I am reducing my input of media, upping my exercise and outside time, and becoming choosier about gifting my attention. And yes, limiting the intake of my beloved IPAs too.
• Fortitude: This virtue seems to be naturally growing for many of us because of the pandemic. Life as it was has shifted to life as it is. The accepting of this reality strengthens the muscle of endurance in uncertain times. When I am dwelling on the gifts of this moment (a deep breath, clean water, a hug from my son) I am doing reps of forbearance. When I am truly looking at the suffering of our times in the systems that oppress and a pandemic that grips, I build the grit necessary to bear and break through burdens. Gratitude for what is and the imagination to dream what could be pairs wells with fortitude.
• Justice: I am confronting my internal biases on race, systems, and supposed normalcy. The self-evaluation of this work is akin to scraping off barnacles from a boat. Barnacles that create a drag in the water that slow my efforts in right relationships.  It is taxing to peel off crusty layers of my personal and historical barnacles of biases. For me this work is undergone through self-reflection, conversation, showing up, trainings, practices, and opening the doors of my curiosity even wider. I feel like I am never developing this virtue enough and those sneaky barnacles keep showing themselves in unexamined corners.

At the edge of suffering, may you find meaning.
In the midst of suffering, may you find virtue.
In the legacy of suffering, may you hear ancestral voices guiding you forward. 

Helping out where I can,
Paul