God Rest You Worried Gentlefolk

The Sunday afternoon was sunny and delightfully cool, the Fall leaves were gorgeous, and the refreshments kept coming as the room kept filling. Happy greetings, broad smiles, hugs, and mounting chatter said it all: for those who had felt deep sorrow, there were now times of joy and a readiness to celebrate new life. To this particular gathering, everyone who had ever participated in a grief recovery group at the sponsoring church was invited, and a large number came.

Just east of the food table, I struck up a conversation with a man I will call Sam, who was having difficulty getting into the festive mood, having only recently lost a daughter to cancer. Right now, Sam told me, it feels like I'm almost unhinged. Our exchange remained free of interruptions long enough for him to say more about what the hinges in his life were and how he felt them to be coming apart. I have found Sam's analogy very helpful not only to understanding what happens in the grieving process, but to getting through it, especially in these times. With a recession upon us, the question of how to celebrate Christmas is already more intense than usual, and for people who are suffering a significant loss --- whether of a loved one, an income, a secure retirement, health, or hope --- it can be overwhelming.

As I talked more with Sam that day, what kept coming to mind was the Latin word for hinge, cardo, and with it an association to "cardinal," not in the sense of the beautiful bird that makes frequent appearances in our back yard, but in the sense of the cardinal "virtues." From Plato and Aristotle all the way through Saints Ambrose, Augustine and Aquinas, human life at its best has been consistently characterized as a state of completeness (or, "perfection") and as a process of achieving it (as in "be perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect" [Mt. 5:48]). Whether as the state or the process, completeness comes from bringing everything that makes us the human beings we are --- specifically our impulses and desires, our will, and our reason --- into an inner harmony and peace. Our accomplishing this "hinges" on developing certain dispositions or habits, which to the ancients meant virtues or excellences of character.

Four dispositions in particular came to be viewed as the hinges upon which completeness of life turns: moderating our cravings; maintaining courage and being reasonable in the face of fear and the temptation to impulsive actions; and treating people fairly --- giving everyone his and her due. For the ancients, these four dispositions --- temperance, courage, wisdom, and justice --- became the cardinal ("hinge") virtues upon which all other virtues such as honesty, fidelity, service, and leadership turn.

Sam's feeling of becoming unhinged revolved around his inability to stop himself from binge drinking; fifteen years of sobriety collapsed overnight in the pain of losing his daughter. Immediately after Sam spoke of feeling unhinged by his binges, he went on to say that it was as if he were losing a vital part of himself. And he was right. From the perspective of striving to develop the cardinal virtues, controlling our appetites and our impulses --- that is, exercising moderation from a tempered spirit --- is a defining characteristic of being human. What Sam discovered is that grieving a significant loss can weaken one or more of the habits which are necessary to our becoming whole.

Most certainly, grief is a feeling of painful dejection. But it is also a sense of a faltering of the best that is in us. And in our grieving, we both need and deserve from others not only their acceptance and encouragment, but also their gentle reminders of who we are at our virtuous best --- temperate, courageous, thoughtful, and fair-minded --- and of the importance that becoming that person again holds to both our well-being and to our integrity.

There may be no better time to work on strengthening the cardinal virtues within us than the present moment, which threatens to unhinge us altogether, whether we are in grief or not. Legitimately angry over what greedy and unscrupulous people on Wall Street have done to us, and seduced by the cajoling of economists to spend ourselves out of the downturn, we can all too easily throw moderation and practical reasoning to the winds in a desperate attempt to drive out the sadness seeping down the walls of our households by extravagances we cannot afford and fantasies we cannot sustain. We can lose courage to take the message of Advent at face value and fail to trust that in the Lord's presence we do not have to be afraid of anything, ever again. And we can deceive ourselves that having less this season somehow absolves us from seeing to it that those who have still less receive even more.