Virtue and Goodness

Devotional Classics, Blaise Pascal, Excerpt from Pensees

"To make us happy [true religion] must show us that a God exists whom we are bound to love, that our only true bliss is to be in him, and our sole ill to be cut off from him." (p.172)

I said to the LORD, "You are my Lord; apart from you I have no good thing." (Ps. 16:2)

I am delighted by this one thought: the gifts that God gives are so I can recognize and come to enjoy his goodness. What if God gave me good things, but was not really that good in himself? I would think he was bribing or tricking me. So his gifts are not good unless he himself is good.

Not only that, but that when I come to understand something true, it also brings me to love, admire, and worship God all the more. If the statement "The truth hurts" were always true, then I would not come to love the one who is the foundation of all truth and reality very much. The truth hurts only inasmuch as I come to find that reality and truth are what I run into when I am wrong. "True religion" brings me to a God I am "bound to love."

I can now seek him beyond and through the gifts he gives, taking them as pictures of his goodness. Without his goodness beyond the gifts, they could just as easily be bribes or distractions. When they bring me into a real relationship with him, they add to the bliss of knowing him by becoming signs and images of his great love for me and his great ambition to make me like Jesus.

A few months ago I gave Dawn a little statue of a couple dancing together after I had gone off to a spiritual retreat. I intended that the gift remind us both of the centrality of our relationship to my spiritual formation and work with God. I hoped that the gift would be a reminder of my love for her and my aspiration to be together in our life work for God.

When the goodness of God does not underlie the gifts I receive, I am always drawn to finding more gifts. They feed and exacerbate a hunger I have for true love and true goodness while not filling it. They can even blind me to God himself because of the intensity of my hunger. Somehow, my blind hunger for God becomes the very thing that keeps me from him when I try to live on mere desire. It is only when the consumption of mere gifts from God brings me to hopelessness that I can look beyond them and see that my "sole ill [is] to be cut off from him."

The continual embracing of God's goodness beyond his gifts begins with thankfulness. It moves on to worship. With worship comes virtue. Virtue is the imitation of the goodness of God admired in worship and embraced with thankfulness. If I do not walk with virtue, can I say that I have truly seen the goodness of God?

Lord, grant me a continuing vision of your goodness as I walk and live in this world. Let each breath, each sight, each word, each sound be the overtures to your goodness. As I become more aware of the goodness that lies beyond each thing, let me become good as you are. I know my gifts will reflect what is in me. Let it be virtue, my imitation of your goodness in the life you've given me to live. Amen.

Virtue and a Way Out

Devotional Classics, Blaise Pascal, Excerpt from Pensees

"Thus wishing to appear openly to those who seek him with all their heart and hidden from those who shun him with all their heart, he has qualified our knowledge of him by giving signs which can be seen by those who seek him and not by those who do not. There is enough light for those who desire only to see, and enough darkness for those of a contrary disposition." (p.175)

It seems there is plenty of darkness about. I am distressed when I read the news. I talk with people who are unhappy, sick, and tired. Even the good things in life seem to require so much work. It seems there is more than enough darkness to justify a "contrary disposition" when it comes to seeing God. I sympathize deeply with people who just can't see.

There is a part of me that wants to see the darkness. I used to fantasize about what I would do if something really terrible happened to me, like losing my whole family in a car crash. Then I would really let people have it, I used to say to myself. I would really tell them what I think. Somehow the thought of losing everything gave me a certain pride, a sense of hurt self-righteousness. I would be excused for being mean and losing myself in whatever pleasure I wanted because I had lost so much.

I don't play that fantasy anymore. Yet I do find that the darkness that I dwell on still gives me that "contrary disposition" and often precedes thoughtless acts that hurt myself and others around me. Somehow I need to give myself permission to be mean or lustful. I've heard this is not uncommon.

I have begun to get into a different habit. When the darkness closes in, I have started to call out, "Help!" to God. Usually, for a while I dwell on it or muddle around in it. I am beginning to realize when I'm stuck though. I pull and complain and eventually begin to despair. So I yell, "Help!"

You know what? God comes. Sometimes immediately; usually soon. His words to me change everything, even when the circumstances don't change. That is the power of his words. They bring light into that dark place. It doesn't necessarily take a lot of light to brighten some of those holes. And light always means a way out.

So virtue becomes a way out of my present darkness. It is not a mere "good thing to do" or credit in heaven or points with God. Virtue reminds me to look up when I'm stuck in that hole. It is the habit and practice of looking up at certain points in the day because very likely very soon I will be looking down at myself buried in trouble. Reading the Bible. Saying a practiced prayer. Helping someone out. Hugging a crying child. Such deliberate acts, whether regular or habitual, cause me to look up and cry "Help" in the darkest hours.

On the other end, vices and sins and addictions may take me away from my problem for a moment, but I only find myself buried deeper when I come back. And the darkness deepens. Such things are what I do when I give up and feel despair. "Let us eat and drink for tomorrow we die" is a statement of the utmost despair.

Lord, thank you for providing ways out of the darkness. There is indeed enough light to come after you. You are light; I need only look up. Lift up my eyes so I can see you each day, especially when the darkness is deep. Amen.

When a person is lost in the woods, they need to stay still and call out. What gets people killed is running around and trying to save themselves in a panic. What a good picture of virtue: stop and cry out. What a sobering picture of sin: run around until you fall off a cliff. Both lost. Both found. One alive and one dead.