True North & the Moral Compass

Oct 7

Monday @ Montpelier:

October 7

Reasons for Right

Last night, my 6-year-old son asked me “what’s morality”? Of course this was while I was snuggling him just before the final kiss goodnight. They always choose the best times for philosophical conversation!

I told him that it was the beliefs we held that motivated our actions and gave him a couple of opposing examples having to do with our treatment of other people. It was then followed with the question “There’s believing in God and not believing in God—what’s in the middle?”

Ah me. One existential wondering at a time, please! I’m still stuck on the first one this morning.

I recently read chapter 9 of The Religious Potential of the Child by Sofia Cavalletti (insert shameless plug here) and on page 120, she says “…what is morality in the Christian view if not the response to God’s love, our reaction to our encounter with God?” Her definition of morality from a non-Christian standpoint is on the next page, stated as “simply facts of our communal reality.” I have to admit that this is mostly where my kids land at this age in both their moral and spiritual formation. Mainly, their treatment of one another is based on that communal reality of having to live with and around other people. It’s a very give-and-take system at present, where they are motivated to do good for others because it will have positive impact on them.

I frequently worry about it staying there. I don’t want self it to be their reason for generosity and love, their impetus for right living and sacrificial acts. Though I can engage in habit training and work to establish rules of communal life to guide my children (usually via non-spiritual positive incentive and natural negative consequences), the encounter with love bit is utterly outside of my purview.

Love as Adversary

I looked up that word encounter—did you know it is rooted in the Latin word for against? Its original meaning is to be in conflict: a clash of adversaries! I don’t usually associate this kind of meeting with confronting the Good Shepherd, but it’s not absent from the Bible. Jacob’s encounter with the Angel in Genesis chapter 32 comes immediately to mind: “a man wrestled with him until daybreak.”

God is not our adversary but is an opposing force to our inner nature. Agape—Love that lays down its very life for another—is not a natural type of love for the human heart. Time and again, even Biblical “heroes” are proven not to be “good” men and women. They are scoundrels and murderers and adulterers and gluttons and liars and cheats. The moments we crave to hear about them—when they transcend their nature and have positive impact on the world—are the result of their wrestling with a force in conflict with their base desires when Love wins.

I hear so often the argument that people don’t need to believe in God to do good, and they are absolutely right. Right action can be done by humans. We can make a real and lasting impact just by fulfilling that communal reality that guides our choices. We want to believe that we are gallant when our lives are gallant, but even scoundrels can do good. It would be nice to believe that enough good actions will make us sufficiently good, but I think enough of us have felt the impact of the downfall of our heroes to know that human goodness is far more complicated than that. How many of us have been rocked by the exposure of those we revered, and have had to wrestle with the impossible question “how can I love/read/watch/enjoy/benefit from the good this person produce when they have also cause so much secret pain?”

Feeling the Pull

Another definition of encounter is to come “face-to-face” with an opposing force. Sometimes I think of morality as a rigid thing, but we talk about it as a “compass” and a compass needle is always trembling, always on the move. It’s an ongoing calibration, a re-facing of a force outside of us that pulls us.

Moral formation is daunting for ourselves, let alone for the children in our care. I have the ability to give my kids a basic road map to human living, but if they are following my map rather than the pull of a compass needle, it’ll be dangerously limited. When hurricanes wipe beloved people and places off the map; when “do your research” creates algorithm loops that make biases traps and unity impossible; when love and trust grooms the innocent for abuse—set rules of moral engagement will quickly fail to navigate us through. Any maps we create will be based on ongoing movement. If we are on a purposeful course rather than aimless wandering, it will be based on encounter with a force that course-corrects in real time, creating the path we follow through a repeated rhythm of opposition and return.

The Needle Shifts

The needle is moving because we are shifting course from and back to a steady force, and it’s going to be the person who is holding the compass, encountering the force, who will feel the way forward. I can be that for my kids right now, to some degree, but it’s a temporary measure. Moral formation is the process of them reading and following their own compass along a path of positive living; spiritual formation is setting that compass’ true North, and that is a scary reality to face. What if it takes them somewhere I can’t follow? What if it takes them somewhere dangerous?

I can’t bring them into encounter with the Force that will lead them into fullness of life. A conflict is between two forces, and they are going to have to engage their own limbs if they are to truly experience encounter. All I can do is try to feel the pull of the Good Shepherd and follow it myself, modeling what that process (including course-correction) might look like for their own journey.

And I have to be willing to listen and learn, too, because they were born with a compass and they are already feeling forces pulling at them. In many ways, they have less adulterated access to the voice of the Spirit, and if their path is at odds with mine, it’s worth stopping to take stock of what my needle is pointed towards before I insist on plowing ahead.

Rules of Moral Engagement

Whether we agree on what True North is or not, I wonder if we can agree on a few things:

it’s our opposition to an outside force that directs our feet and it’s worth determining what that force is and whether or not it is life-giving to us and those around us;

if the needle isn’t moving, it is worth wondering why and evaluating the impact that this lack of opposition is having on our actions and their impact on others;

we cannot force another to feel the pull of our compass needle, and if someone we love and respect is following theirs in an alternate direction, comparing “True Norths” might be of value to both parties;

children have a compass and can feel its pull, too: they are worthy of respect and being considered and heard.