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“Wolt thou be maad hool? [Do you will to be made whole?]”
John 5:6
Translation from the Middle English Bible
For the past few months, I’ve been obsessed with medieval Christianity, specifically our Christian ancestors’ vibrant meditations on virtue and vice through literature and art. This recent interest came after reading a new book by writer and scholar Grace Hamman called “Ask of Old Paths: Medieval Virtues and Vices for a Whole and Holy Life.”[1]
In her book, Grace seeks to reanimate seemingly old-fashioned concepts like fortitude, meekness and chastity. In doing so, she challenges us to treat these virtues not as some sort of quick-fix checklist on the express lane to sanctification, but rather as glimpses into how we can love one another and live in community, more wholly human and connected to God.
When I started reading her book, I was skeptical. For me, talk of virtues and vice was tainted by the countless ways I’ve seen them weaponized, but I was wrong.
The virtues boil down to the question Christ asks in the verse above to the man at the pool of Bethesda who has been ill for a long time. It’s the same question He asks each one of us: “Do you want to be made whole?” The process of becoming a more whole human being, becoming more like Jesus, is the purpose of any exploration of the vices and their remedying virtues.
Take pride and humility. While reading Grace’s book, I was introduced to a pair of 13th century images that display the virtues and vices as two parallel trees.[2] At the base of the tree of vices is pride, from which things like lust, avarice and wrath grow. At the base of the tree of virtues is humility, supporting the verdant leaves of prudence, love, mercy, and others. Revealed in these beautiful visual teaching tools is a sobering truth: our deepest sense that we lack wholeness stems from deep-seeded pride. The emptiness we feel is rooted in our habits of making ourselves the center of the universe and not recognizing our utter dependence on Almighty God. In short, we are lured into the deceit that we are self-made and self-sufficient.
But, of course, God’s grace does not leave us without hope. In confessional humility, God can give us the power and perspective to uproot our pride. We can excavate all those moments we take the things in our life – our children, our marriage, our finances, our faith, our gifts, our luck – and turn them into opportunities to prove our superiority or worth. We can ask God to plant in our hearts a tree of virtue, rooted in the Christlike humility that knows absolutely everything about us is dependent on His greater goodness.
When we do this God makes us whole.
[1] To hear our interview with Grace about her new book, check out The Wayside Podcast.
[2] See a full-color manuscript of The Tree of Virtues and Vices here.
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