Compassion bench
Photo by Dave Lowe/Unsplash
November 9, 2023
In the post about vigil as a prophetic task, I wrote that vigil is practiced in relation to virtue. That is, vigil is not ultimately a criticism of evil, it is the cultivation of good. Vigil is an exercise in virtue, and thus casts a vision for the Beloved Community.
But virtue does not occur by accident. It comes through education to instill it, and by advocacy to preserve it. As Seneca said, “Wisdom comes haphazard to no one.” [1] Vigil occurs as a result of virtue education. Paul called it training ourselves in godliness (1 Timothy 4:8). Vigil begins in the formation of conscience, and that comes through whole-life learning.
This is precisely why far-right demagogues (fascists) seek to undermine education by sanitizing history, eliminating diversity training, and undermining the humanities and the arts. By preventing this kind of learning they create people who no longer have the capacity for wisdom and the discernment it creates. Emptied of this, the despots hijack language to spread lies and misinformation which people are unable to recognize as such. A “washed brain” becomes an “empty soul” lacking the virtue upon which a decent and benevolent society exists.
Vigil cries out for virtue, and history provides us with the substance of what that means. In philosophy (philo-sophy, knowing what makes for love) it is essentially living in ways that enable everyone else to live well too. In the world’s religions it is having a good heart out of which kindness and compassion come. In Judaism it is shalom. In Christianity it is the fruit of the Spirit. In Islam it is being well-mannered, particularly in terms of generously doing good to others.
Vigil is a commitment to virtue. It calls out evil because it knows what goodness is. Vigil begins with the vision of original righteousness, not original sin. And in that vision of primal virtue, vigil is the call for people to be what God has made them to be, not what the despots are trying to make them be.
[1] “The Daily Stoic” e-letter, 11/5/2023.