Most of us affirm abstract virtues and values like justice, freedom, respect, hope, trust,, sutainability, and gratitude. But we often neglect to practice them in the concrete instance involving one or more particular people, places and things Our actions have to embody our abstract virtues and values in order to be a virtuous person who puts time, money, and attention into living them in daily life.
Consider the minister who loves to preach but refuses to do pastoral care. Preaching that engages both head and heart must flow from directd personal experience, and pastoral care is an important form of that learning experience, Or the teacher who lecdtures but does not engage in answerubg questions or one on one help with students who are having trouble learning. In those one-on-one sessions the student is teaching the teacher how to be more effective in guidingthe learning process and keeping students engaged. Or t he supervisor who assigns work but is quick to punish or even fire but slow to affirm or help a struggline employee. Empasthetic and respectiful support and ennouragement is not only virtuous, it is also profitable, because high employee turnover is expensive to the firm.
It is those one on one acts that embody and feed the abstract understanding of how we should be with one another. It is good to seize the moment. I was at dinner with friends the other night when we realized that the woman ast the next table did not have any cash and the restaurant did not take credit cards. We came to her rescue with a $23 loan, trusting that she woujld payus back. When she was able to access cash and came to repay us, we were rewarded with a delightful evening of conv ersationwith our new fried.
Seizing the moment is ngood, but not enough. WE need to seek the moments as well. That ;m;ay mean getting out of our comfort zone, but the rewa rds as almost always bilateral I remember volunteering to teach English as a second language to three wives of grad students, all Muslims from different countries. I learned as much as I taught about their history, theiir cultures, their hopes and dreams.
So pick a value or two today to try to practice on friends or strangers, those with reandom encounters like our restuarant friend and those you seek out intentionally. Ast the end of the day, ask yourself how you practiced justice, or trust, or respect, and how it enriched your understanding of what that virtue means in practce and how that encounter strenftgthened your commitment to being a just or trusting of resepctful person.
You and the world will be better for the effort.
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PurpleSage41 