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Know the saying "Patience is a virtue, but too much of it can hurt you"? Can you think of a virtue, which if substituted for Patience, would not in fact be a likely cause of hurt? What about moderation? Hhmm. Come to think of it, even moderation needs moderating!
My ears were drawn to a GMC Terrain commercial recently. The tagline was "We're challenging the standard ... of what comes standard." This was narrated in deep, rugged tones. Pioneer voice. It seems to me the human race has been challenging standards for a while now. A few of us innovate, then a bunch of us challenge the innovations, then many of us eventually become accustomed to life with those innovations. But there is always someone to come along and ask questions, innovate, and challenge the standards yet again.
Each time I think of a virtue to write about, I find myself asking the question, "Who decides what this virtue entails and what should be our standard for living up to its high bar?"
Some virtues are more problematic than others when it comes to standards. For example, think about obedience or discernment. These two virtues beg the questions "Obedience to whom or what?" and "Discernment according to which agreed-upon worldview?"
This is why I choose to write about these "odd" virtues because I'm coming to realize that what they mean to one person, living in a particular time, place, and circumstance, can be quite different than what they mean to another. The virtue I planned to write about in this post is OBEDIENCE.
Not surprisingly, my interest in obedience was sparked by watching Netflix. Specifically, a TV series called Outlander. The show is based on a series of books of historical fiction by Diana Gabaldon. My preference in literary fiction has to date leaned heftily towards science fiction rather than historical fiction, but watching Outlander (and less recently, 1923, 1944, and Yellowstone) is leading me to rethink that preference.
What interested me most about Outlander was the way it spanned the histories of Scotland (where my maternal ancestors, the Campbells and the McIntoshes, hailed from), Jamaica (where I was born and grew up), and the American colonies (where I live now). The main protagonists include Claire, a scientifically trained 20th-century Englishwoman with medical skills, who time-travels backwards 200 years and is stranded in Scotland, where she is forced to marry Jamie, a brawny 18th-century Scotsman with red hair.
Jamie and Claire fall in love, but their union is complicated by the tension between Claire's strongly feminist (by early 20th-century standards) views and the Highland Scottish way of life, which was decidedly patriarchal.
Photo of the Outlander actor and actresses who play Jamie and Claire Fraser and (I think) Jamie's aunt Jocasta, appearing on an Entertainment news soundstage.
Anti-Racism & Civil Disobedience
Anti-Racism & Civil Disobedience
During her visit to Jamaica, Claire, in particular, as well as Jamie, is appalled by the institution of slavery and the treatment of enslaved Africans. In one of the most mournful episodes, Claire rescues a slave about to be lynched, but ends up committing a mercy killing to prevent his death by torture (and her in-laws' home from being torched). Time and again, Claire, Jamie, and their kin end up in trouble with the law. This time-traveling adventure has me thinking: what is there to be done by a time-traveling individual who can tell the future (having seen it) and who wants to warn society to change its ways so that the future may be better? Is this somewhat similar to the situation when a human messenger arises with spiritual teachings from the Almighty? We (living in the past) are blinded by our customs, unable to see the flaws in our systems. Only time will tell.
Time Will Tell
turning in the grain again / the bells begin to chime / time, she says, “there’s no turning back, keep your eyes on the tracks” / through the fields, somewhere there’s blue / oh, time will tell, she’ll see us through
howling out, the windy hills / and all the time we took / you should know just how it steals / keep your hand on the wheel / and through it all, somewhere we knew / time will tell, she’ll see us through
and all fire and flames took all we trust / we’re kicking up dust / stations fade just like they do / oh, time will tell, we always knew
oh, time will tell, we always knew
I've not much more to say about obedience, except that I think one must be obedient to some standard, and I've found the best standard for me is my own insurmountable conscience.
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