The 7 Virtues for The Post-Modern World - Temperance!

Christ in the Wilderness by Stanley Spencer

Starting with this post, I will start a series on the 7 virtues! Exciting huh?

The seven virtues are hardly spoken of outside the walls of catechism. Perhaps they elicit in us horrid memories of old school nuns beating these virtues onto our bodies with human sized rulers. Perhaps they remind us of medieval, ascetical, and rigid spirituality.

But virtues matter. We shouldn't keep them in "medieval consciousness" boxes stored in our cultural attics. They should be unboxed, discovered, and be given a place in our 21st century homes.

As I will explore in these upcoming posts, these virtues are immensely necessary to our 21st century society. The postmodern world needs them more than ever. I will also offer practical ways to practice them in an urban context.

For today's post we will start with Temperance!

What is Temperance?
Temperance can be described as self-restraint or self control. It is connected with discipline. It evokes images of a moderate person who is not overrun by emotions and passions. Negatively, it can bring up images of a stoic individual who seems dry, joyless and lacking in emotional expressions.

True temperance, however, should bring joy. This negative aspect of the virtue is more connected with someone who practices temperance for temperance's sake, while forgetting the end goal of practicing virtues in general: theosis, or union with God.

Interestingly enough, temperance (and the practice of it) has a wide range of applications. We can practice temperance not only with material goods, but also with our emotions. We practice temperance, for example, when in anger we decide not to engage in violence but instead we practice non-violence and forgiveness.

With this example, we start seeing how temperance is hugely important in our modern world and its struggles towards social justice.

Temperance & The Holy Spirit
Temperance is also connected with the self-control, which is the last  fruit of the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 5:22-23.) I believe this list of the fruits of the Holy Spirit is hierarchical, meaning that each fruit builds on top each other.

The apostle Paul lists self control at the bottom of the list, since it is not only the one we should start practicing with, but also the base where the Holy Spirit can build up the other gifts. It is for this reason that I wanted to start this series of the 7 virtues with Temperance.

The Virtue of Temperance for a Post-Modern World
There are many ways we can practice temperance in our urbanized world.

First, the practice of temperance encourages us to lead a simple life and to fight our senseless materialism that is sucking the precious resources of our earth. A study suggested that, if the rest of the world were to consume like Americans, we would need 4 planet earths!

Temperance, or self-control in materialism will help offset this senseless consumption of resources. It will teach us that we are not more entitled to these goods than people in other developing nations.

Secondly, temperance will help us in our struggle towards environmental justice. We practice self-control by making the sacrifices needed to reduce our carbon footprint. Like I've written in the past, the problem is not just the government, but we also bear a personal responsibility in destroying the environment.

Thirdly, temperance will also give us self-restrain in the things we do buy. We can practice it by paying attention to how our purchases affect the world around us and by showing self-restrain from buying goods that are probably cheaper, but they are built on maquilas or factories that are abusive to its workers, and even have child labor.

Since buying fair-trade goods is probably more expensive, this will require that we consume at a lower rate than we currently do. We will buy less things, but the ones we do will probably be of better quality. Sometimes less is more.

All of this, of course, require discipline. It is easier to go with the flow and simply buy what is convenient. It is easier to not think of what we are consuming instead of showing self-control by restraining our over-consumption.

In what other ways is temperance relevant in our post-modern world?

The Gift of Not Belonging

I know the feeling of not belonging.

As an immigrant from Nicaragua, I feel like I don't fully belong to this place I call home. Through the 13 years I've been in this country, however, I have adopted some of its values and cultures, while at the same time not abandoning fully my own Nicaraguan values and culture.

Because of this, I feel like I don't fully belong in Nicaragua anymore. My Spanish accent has changed and it is no longer fully Nicaraguan, for example. My newly adopted western values are sometimes in conflict with my Nicaraguan ones.

I am stuck in the middle of two cultures.

A Progressive, But Not A Liberal
But the feeling of not belonging doesn't stop there.

Politically, I feel I don't belong to any of the polarized political positions in this country. I don't feel fully comfortable belonging to either the Republican or Democratic party. I have strong disagreements with both.

In many ways I am a progressive. I feel my calling as a Christian is to see the perspective of the poor first, not because they are somehow more "deserving" (how can we talk of someone being deserving or not in a religion that stands on Grace?), but because the world puts them last.

Jesus hanged out with sinners and tax collectors. He hanged out with the poor. In my imitation of Christ, I want to do likewise. This is what makes me a progressive, even if I don't fully buy into the liberal agenda.

It is for this reason that I support raising the minimum wage to a livable minimum wage. This aligns with my conviction that people are more than what they do, and that in an economy that needs the janitor as much as they need the CEO, they should both be afforded a wage that can sustain them and their families with dignity.

It is for this reason that I want to call this nation to show more hospitality to immigrants. When Paul proclaims that in Christ there is no Jew or Greek (one of the racial and spiritual divisions of the time) he is leaving issues of nationalistic values as secondary to our call of seeing the other as our brother and sister.

The way the world mistreats the "other," the foreigner around the world, is heartbreaking. It seems to me that we value more our nationalistic identity than our call to love our neighbor. When Jesus responded to the Pharisees' question of, "who is my neighbor?" He responded with a parable that highlighted a Samaritan, the hated 'other' in that context.

Our neighbors are not only people of our own kind but the "other" our culture fears and despises. Even if we are disposed to not include the foreigner as our neighbor but more as our enemy, the command from Jesus to love our enemies still applies and calls us to love.

Love, for the Christian, is inescapable.

It is for this reason that I feel uncomfortable supporting most Republican candidates, because they (at the current choices) don't strike me as being welcoming to the immigrant. In fact, many of them want to deport the 11 million undocumented immigrants in this country whom they see as not belonging here.

Not Pro-Choice and yet Not Pro-Life
Let my clarify this. Ethically speaking, I am Pro-Life in the fullest sense of the word, but I can't join the Pro-Life movement as it currently is, with all the political entanglement of a particular party. This is what I mean by not being Pro-Life. I don't wish to be identified with the Pro-Life movement in the US.

I see being Pro-Life as a holistic call against a culture of death. For this reason, I can in no good conscience get behind pro-gun rights (I don't see an issue in using guns for hunting, but open carry? I have an issue with that).

I can't get behind a Pro-Life movement so entangled with a particular party that encourages cuts in the budget towards health and education but never speaks of cutting the budget towards the military and security.

If we are truly Pro-Life, then the fact that as a nation we engage in wars every 30 years or so should be disturbing. If we are truly Pro-Life, we should by definition abolish the death penalty. A political platform that condemns abortion but upholds other forms of 'righteous' killing may be more accurately described as Pro-Birth, but never Pro-Life.

This doesn't mean I am Pro-Choice. Better said, I am not Pro-Abortion. I can't deny that abortion deals with the ending of a life. This alone disturbs me. We can argue all we want whether a fetus is a human being or not, but it would be disingenuous to deny that the fetus is alive.

I know that as a man, my opinions on this subject necessarily take the backseat. I recognize that I will never have to go through the excruciating experience of deciding whether to have an abortion or not. I want to acknowledge that my perspective is severely limited because of this, and I truly don't know fully what I'm talking about, nor will I ever.

At the same time, one forms opinions on matters whether one wants to or not, and my value of life prevents me from fully supporting abortion. I understand it is not always a black-and-white issue. I understand that in many situations there are subtleties that deserve our attention. But at the end of the day, after an abortion is performed, a life is lost.

Any loss of life should always grieve us.

As you can see, for these and many other reasons, I cannot fit into any particular conservative or liberal box. I don't belong to any of them.

The Gift of Not Belonging
I can take these realities and declare "woe is me!" but I won't. I want to embrace this reality as a gift from God.

This gift of perspective allows me to see blind spots that are ubiquitous in any given culture. It allows me to see from two different cultural lenses, and acknowledge the pros and cons of each position while not fully fitting into those boxes myself.

Not only that, but maybe this sensation of not belonging is the call of the Christian. Jesus declares that we are in the world and yet not of the world. He also proclaims that His Kingdom is not of this world, and yet the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand, present in this world.

I am disturbed, therefore, at seeing the Church in the US being so shaped by culture wars and ideologies of our society. I see a church that conforms more and more with the polarizing views of our national politics, whether they be conservative or liberal.

I see a Church that mirrors the political polarization of this nation, instead of the unity we are called to in Christ. If the Church is so divided not only theologically, but also culturally and politically, can we truly say that it is living fully in Christ?

When we choose a side and defend it against the other side, we enter into a cultural bubble. Ideas formed in these bubbles will slowly develop apart from the perspective of the other. As time passes in this polarized nature and ideas on both sides continue to develop independently from each other, we are driven further and further apart.

Divisions are so aggravated that when the two opposing groups get to share their ideas with each other they are both met with disgust and disbelief. Polarization is a vicious cycle that feeds on itself. The two bubbles will grow in substantial size, and when they make contact with each other, they will burst into chaos.

Here is the thing: the Church is not called to be conservative or liberal. The Church is called to be Christ to the world. Christ did not belong to any particular party of His time. He was not a Pharisee. He was not a Sadducee. He was not a Zealot. He was not a Hellenistic Jew. Christ simply was and is.

I'm not saying that a Christian shouldn't belong to any particular party. What I am saying is that this belonging is only secondary to the call to belong to Christ. Belonging to a particular political party should never be seen as a prerequisite to belonging to Christ. To consider it otherwise would be pure idolatry. When we have denominations that identify first as either "traditional" or "affirming," and only secondly as Christ-centered, we have indeed allowed our faith to be shaped by our politics instead of the cross.

I believe that our root sin as a Church is nothing other than the idolatry of culture. Our call then, is not to be a conservative or a liberal Christ to the world. Our call is simply to be Christ to the world.

Looking for the Wilderness in an Age of Productivity

[Luke 5:15-16 ESV] 15 But now even more the report about him went abroad, and great crowds gathered to hear him and to be healed of their infirmities. 16 But he would withdraw to desolate places and pray.

One of the greatest dangers for those of us who are in ministry and/or non-profit work is burning out. This is especially troublesome if you are doing this kind of work while raising a family.

Members of the clergy suffer higher rates of obesity and hypertension than the rest of Americans.

Working for non-profits over the past 5 years, I have personally experienced burnout. I have never been as tired in my life as when doing this work. I have noticed anger and resentment grow in me as I go through a grueling day of work and ministry, even as my body is asking me for rest.

Why is This?
I think there are two reasons for our tendency to overwork in ministry.

First, our obsession with productivity in our culture. We value 'doing' more than 'being.' We are what we do. Whatever value you give to the world through your work is the value you receive from this world. Our identity, confidence, and self-esteem is contingent on what we do and accomplish.

With this philosophy, or work ethic, if you want to be better, you have to do better.

Second, ministry and non-profit work are often fueled by our passions. We dedicate ourselves to a good cause, to changing unjust systems so that it benefits the greater number of people. Clergy and ministers are fueled by a passion to serve God and people. We may feel duty-bound to spend ourselves for a cause.

In an age where productivity and hard work are rewarded, and when our passion to serve God and others is fueling us, the result is a perfect storm for burnout.

What Can We Do?
In the reading from Luke, we see that as Jesus' ministry grows, He found more opportunities to withdraw to the wilderness.

For many of us, witnessing our work and ministry grow and attract more people can be an exhilarating experience. We can easily get caught up in the excitement of our work. We may experience a new high that can easily become obsessive. We may plunge even deeper into our work.

Jesus doesn't seem preoccupied about that. His joy and excitement seem unaffected by His popularity. In fact, in chapter 5 of Luke, after healing a man with leprosy, Jesus instructs him not to tell anyone. Jesus seems not in the least concerned with growing His popularity and thus growing His ministry.

As His ministry grew, Jesus began to withdraw to desolate places. His initial reaction, unlike many of ours, is not to plunge deeper into His work. His initial reaction is to withdraw. How radical this is! How contrary to our own logic of productivity! Imagine if, when things get busier in your work, instead of working more you looked for opportunities to withdraw. I'm sure many of us would get fired if we did this!

And we are told in the Scriptures that Jesus withdraws to desolate places. Desolate places in the New Testament can be synonymous with deserts, places with few people and resources. These are places where there seems to be little life. He withdraws from places that are full of worldly life to find a Greater Life.

Jesus does more than just withdraw. He doesn't withdraw simply to have a nap or a cup of tea while enjoying the sunlight (not that there is anything wrong with that). But the Scriptures tells us that He withdraws to pray.

While physical rest is good and necessary, spiritual rest is even better and more necessary. Hebrews 4:10-11a describes entering God's presence as entering into His rest: "for whoever has entered God's rest has also rested from his work as God did from His. Therefore, let us strive to enter that rest."

The Greek word for strive in verse eleven is spoudazo. This word can be translated as diligence, eagerness, and even labor.  In its counter-intuitive and paradoxical way, the Scriptures uses a word related to hard work and productivity to call us to rest!

Striving for God's Rest
I am not trying to discount hard work. It seems to me there are many instances where Jesus works hard for His ministry. But Jesus is also diligent in returning to the wilderness. When Jesus started His ministry, the Holy Spirit guided Him to 40 days and nights in the wilderness.

As His ministry grows, He strives to return to that wilderness in the presence of God. Jesus returns to the place where He found His calling. He returns to that place of intimacy where He found His name of Beloved.

During Lent, we are called to follow Jesus in the wilderness. During our hard labor, our ceaseless ministry, it is most necessary to respond to the call of the wilderness.

We are called to withdraw from the crowds, the merciless goals and checklists, and return to that place of intimacy. Many of us get inspired to start our work of ministry after a powerful, transformative, and personal encounter with God. His love propels us to do our work.

As the years pass by and our ministry grows, we may forget that experience of intimacy in the wilderness, where God came and gave us the name of Beloved.

Let us labor then to enter into that rest, to return to that place of intimacy and experience once again the depth of God's rest.

Why Living in The City has Not Made Me Happier

I grew up loving the city.

Being born and raised in Managua, Nicaragua, meant living in an unusual city. Managua has been called "the city of trees". My neighborhood, while not quite suburban, was very quiet. There was a strong community feel to it.

Managua, a city filled with trees

My street doubled as a soccer or baseball field. We knew everybody in our block and they knew us. There was no downtown, with all the buzz of masses of people trading, thanks to the 1972 earthquake that leveled it. There is instead El Mercado Oriental, a massive outdoor maze-like market that is often dirty, filled with people, and stocked with every imaginable item you'd want to buy.

Managua, being the unusual city that it is, left a thirst in me for dense, booming cities. I wanted to be in a city full of skyscrapers, of people living on top of each other, of countless restaurants going wild with chit chat and endless clinking of dishes and glasses. Museums, theaters, and street performances...I wanted it all.

I wanted to live in the big city.

And then I Moved to The Big City: San Francisco

I moved to the U.S. in 2003. I didn't immediately move to San Francisco, but lived in the suburbs for 6 years before I had a chance to move to the city. I entered as a candidate to the Augustinian religious order, and I moved in with them in San Francisco to study and go through my pre-novitiate.

My first week in the city was one of quiet and enchantment. We had a small but beautiful garden in the back (quite a luxury in that city) where I spent hours reading and contemplating. Classes hadn't started yet, so I had plenty of time to accommodate myself and relax.

Classes started soon, and the hectic-ness of city life caught up to me. I started to notice a strange development: my heart started beating faster. I was more anxious. It was hard to sit still.

Lack of Community
In a city of almost a million, it was easy for me to get lost, unrecognized by the surrounding mass of people and things. It was difficult to make friends. For one, I was more busy than I ever had been in my life. Other people seemed to be busy and uninterested.

Why is this? Why is it that in a place full of people, there is so little community?

According to German sociologist Georg Simmel, in an attempt to protect ourselves from the overwhelming flood of city stimuli, city dwellers develop an indifferent attitude towards our surroundings.

In order to protect ourselves from the massive number of people, noise, billboards and advertisements, all demanding our attention, we have to ignore and turn off most of it in order to be able to function as normal human beings.

The city is a factory of indifference.

What Have I Gained from Living in The City?
One thing that I still enjoy of city living is the culture you can experience in it.

There are endless small coffee shops filled with beard-wielding young adults. There are the indie musicians showing off their unconventional feats and unusual performances in city bars. There are museums, galleries, and symphony halls.

I have gained a lot of what we call "culture." This is, I believe, the main attraction of city life.

But what what I have lost is also monumental. I have become more indifferent to people around me. I have less peace of mind. I have become more angry. I have a lot of anger, for example, for bad drivers, for people bumping into me, for noise in the middle of the night, and more and more I crave alone time in my home with my own entertainment. My home has become the bubble in which I seek refuge from the city.

I also notice how much of an elitist spirit has invaded my heart. I look with disdain at cheap coffee and look with horror at people enjoying a cup of Folgers. I almost hate Starbucks, which seems the coffee of choice of suburbans who lack the knowledge of truly good coffee. I look with disgust at Budweiser while I hold in my hand a local IPA from a micro-brewery.

Whenever I go to the suburbs to visit my family, I notice a slight sense of snobbery in me. I become judgmental of people driving their SUVs everywhere, at how they watch cable TV (don't they know that being cord-cutters is cool now?!), and instead of going to some local, small, cramped Italian bistro, they drive to The Olive Garden and consider it a treat.

The Idolatry of Culture
What city life has given me is the idolatry of culture. It has allowed me to look down on those who don't live in it with disdain and disbelief.  I put culture at such a high level in my life that I am willing to give up all peace of mind, and to fill myself with indifference, anger, and snobbery...as long as I have culture.

Whenever I go to the suburbs, however, I feel my heartbeat slow and relax. I don't feel as restless. I am able to rest more. I am beginning to crave more time in the suburbs because of it, despite what I see as a lack of culture. I crave it, even though I judge it.

I realize now that city life has not made me a holier person. It has not made me happier. It has given me culture, but I am not a more 'complete' person because of it.

Mathew 25 and Indifference
Reading Mathew 25, I realize that the most heinous sin is not what we do, but what we don't do. The goats were condemned not for the things they did. Jesus didn't say depart from me because you killed, fornicated, stole, etc...

No. The goats were condemned because they saw Jesus naked, and they didn't clothe Him, hungry and didn't feed Him, in prison and they didn't visit Him. The goats were condemned because of indifference. Maybe, as Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel said, the opposite of love is not hate, but indifference.

To be honest with you, I'm burned out of city life. The level of stress that it has brought me is slowly wearing me down. I need a break from the city and its demanding culture.

The city is a place of social Darwinism, where I feel I need to constantly compete in order to get ahead and simply be able to afford living in it. It is a never-ending competition, one I have no desire to partake in.

Do I really want to continue in a place that nurtures indifference? Where paying attention to my surrounding requires intentionality, and where I can't do it for long without feeling overwhelmed by stimuli?

I don't know the answer to this question. What I do know now is the existence of my current idolatry of culture, and that if I want to follow Jesus, I need to give it up.