Thinking about virtues: Gratitude
Faced with the question of what virtues should or should not be in our ADF list, or if there are any others I would include, only one idea stands out to me: Gratitude.
Should Gratitude be a virtue? So far as I know it has never been explicitly considered as such, neither by ancients nor moderns. What makes me consider it, though, is something a meditation instructor once said. He mentioned, rather off-handedly, that when you have gratitude, acting virtuous becomes easy. Virtuous actions seem to arise spontaneously.
This comment kept coming up again and again in my mind over the last two and a half years. More and more I think it is a very significant realization. When the experience of gratitude is indwelling, virtue naturally arises. Hangups and pettiness recede. If you think of a social situation where someone does you a kindness, you quite naturally feel warmth, generosity, and kindness toward them. Now, on a more cosmic scale, if you think of a time when you feel truly grateful to be alive, to be a part of this earth and its mysterious cycles, you naturally feel good will toward the world and treat people with openness, respect, and love. From a base of gratitude, the ADF virtues too become easy to manifest: piety as a way to express your thanks, wisdom, vision, courage to stand up for this world you now care about, integrity, perseverence in good faith that life is worth living, moderation, fertility, and hospitality to take care of and respect all its kindred.
In terms of the traditional virtues, Gratitude probably fits in as an aspect of Hospitality. But in another light, it almost shows potential as a special key, which can unlock the virtues. It can also enable the smooth flow of energy between self and kindreds, self and world: cultivate an enduring sense of gratitude for being a living part of this world, and you may find your path super-charged! In fact, that's probably what we are doing already...!
Could Gratitude be a virtue in its own right? I think it has potential. If not a virtue, I would explore gratitude specifically as an experience...
As I said before, so far as I know neither ancients nor moderns formulated Gratitude specifically as a virtue. However, if you look at both ancient rites and our modern ADF order of ritual, gratitude is central. There is almost always an element of giving thanks, which expresses and cultivates a sacred kind of gratitude. What's more, in ADF the thanksgiving immediately follows the blessing, at the point when the energy flow has reversed and we are flooded with the return flow of the kindreds. It is not a great theological leap to consider the gratitude experience as one of the blessings received, which subsequently manifests in the thanksgiving part of the rite.
One could argue that the most central concept in ADF is that of gifting, the giving and receiving and maintaining of relations between self and kindreds. Gratitude is already implied therein. It might be fertile ground for an ADF theology.
I could foresee potential problems with preaching too much about "Gratitude" though-- people using the term too freely and accusing each other of being ungrateful at every turn... It might be worthwhile to look for a special term drawn from I-E lore, to express precisely the kind of sacred gratitude that is so powerful and healing... Something to watch for in my I-E studies!
Should Gratitude be a virtue? So far as I know it has never been explicitly considered as such, neither by ancients nor moderns. What makes me consider it, though, is something a meditation instructor once said. He mentioned, rather off-handedly, that when you have gratitude, acting virtuous becomes easy. Virtuous actions seem to arise spontaneously.
This comment kept coming up again and again in my mind over the last two and a half years. More and more I think it is a very significant realization. When the experience of gratitude is indwelling, virtue naturally arises. Hangups and pettiness recede. If you think of a social situation where someone does you a kindness, you quite naturally feel warmth, generosity, and kindness toward them. Now, on a more cosmic scale, if you think of a time when you feel truly grateful to be alive, to be a part of this earth and its mysterious cycles, you naturally feel good will toward the world and treat people with openness, respect, and love. From a base of gratitude, the ADF virtues too become easy to manifest: piety as a way to express your thanks, wisdom, vision, courage to stand up for this world you now care about, integrity, perseverence in good faith that life is worth living, moderation, fertility, and hospitality to take care of and respect all its kindred.
In terms of the traditional virtues, Gratitude probably fits in as an aspect of Hospitality. But in another light, it almost shows potential as a special key, which can unlock the virtues. It can also enable the smooth flow of energy between self and kindreds, self and world: cultivate an enduring sense of gratitude for being a living part of this world, and you may find your path super-charged! In fact, that's probably what we are doing already...!
Could Gratitude be a virtue in its own right? I think it has potential. If not a virtue, I would explore gratitude specifically as an experience...
As I said before, so far as I know neither ancients nor moderns formulated Gratitude specifically as a virtue. However, if you look at both ancient rites and our modern ADF order of ritual, gratitude is central. There is almost always an element of giving thanks, which expresses and cultivates a sacred kind of gratitude. What's more, in ADF the thanksgiving immediately follows the blessing, at the point when the energy flow has reversed and we are flooded with the return flow of the kindreds. It is not a great theological leap to consider the gratitude experience as one of the blessings received, which subsequently manifests in the thanksgiving part of the rite.
One could argue that the most central concept in ADF is that of gifting, the giving and receiving and maintaining of relations between self and kindreds. Gratitude is already implied therein. It might be fertile ground for an ADF theology.
I could foresee potential problems with preaching too much about "Gratitude" though-- people using the term too freely and accusing each other of being ungrateful at every turn... It might be worthwhile to look for a special term drawn from I-E lore, to express precisely the kind of sacred gratitude that is so powerful and healing... Something to watch for in my I-E studies!