Pastor Joe Mullen of Trinity Presbyterian Church, where I meet my classes, gave the opening prayer.
Bonnie Gibson, a senior, a long-time student in my seminars, and a friend, then read these words from The Velveteen Rabbit:
This passage is taken from Margery Williams’s The Velveteen Rabbit. The toy Rabbit is talking in the nursery to the Skin Horse, another toy.
Bonnie Gibson, a senior, a long-time student in my seminars, and a friend, then read these words from The Velveteen Rabbit:
This passage is taken from Margery Williams’s The Velveteen Rabbit. The toy Rabbit is talking in the nursery to the Skin Horse, another toy.
“Real isn't how you are made,' said the Skin Horse. 'It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.'
'Does it hurt?' asked the Rabbit.
'Sometimes,' said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. 'When you are Real you don't mind being hurt.'
'Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,' the Rabbit asked, 'or bit by bit?'
'It doesn't happen all at once,' said the Skin Horse. 'You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand.”
I then began speaking:
Since some of my students had never heard of The Velveteen Rabbit, I decided to include a portion of it here. We’ll come back to this particular passage later.
On my desk I keep a Peanuts cartoon under glass. Linus and Charlie Brown are building a snowman. Charlie Brown says: “Yesterday was my Grampa’s birthday. I asked him what the most important thing was that he had learned in his life.
“Grampa said, ‘I’ve learned that even when people ask me that question they aren’t going to listen.’”
True, perhaps. But I am an old man—I joined Medicare three months ago—and I am a teacher, and old men and teachers can’t help themselves when it comes to philosophizing and giving advice. So let’s start. I promise to keep these remarks under fifteen minutes.
“Life is difficult.”
This is the first line and first paragraph in M. Scott Peck’s The Road Less Travelled.
In the second paragraph Mr. Peck makes the point that once we recognized the truth of these three words—“Life is difficult”—our troubles immediately become more bearable.
Life, Peck says, and I agree, is hardest on those who expect ease and comfort.
If we shamble through our days believing that life should be easy, then the little things—a flat tire, a failed test, a silly quarrel with a friend—grow from molehills into mountains.
Even worse, the bigger ordeals—failing to get into that college where we so desperately sought admittance, facing a pile of bills and debt that eat up every ounce of our energy, losing a spouse or a child—seem insurmountable to those who expect an easy lives.
Life is difficult.
So how do we handle that reality?
In the Old Book, Saint Paul tells us the abiding things are faith, hope, and charity. These are known as the three theological virtues. Add to them the cardinal virtues—prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance—and you have the seven virtues.
Today let’s look at those three theological virtues and see what they promise us. And to make my points, we’ll look at them through some movies.
First, there’s faith. To believe in something worthy of our belief provides a key to the meaning of our lives.
In the movie Secondhand Lions, a boy, Walter, goes to stay for the summer with two crusty uncles. Walter wonders whether the stories they tell about their past are true. Here is a scene from the movie regarding truth and faith.
Late in the film, one of the uncles, Hub, realizes that Walter needs a piece of his lecture for young men. Here we gain a powerful insight into Hub’s philosophy of manhood, a way of thinking whose bedrock principles reveals the heart of this aging lion. It is night, and Hub and Walter are standing by the pond on the farm. Because his mother has lied to him so many times, truth has become very important to Walter, and he demands that his Uncle Hub tell him the truth about his past. Were the stories he has heard about Hub’s adventures in Europe and North Africa true? Had he really fought slave-traders, won a massive fortune by his wits, and married a beautiful woman named Jasmine? Hub has done these things, but now he stares straight into Walter’s eyes and reminds him that some of the fictions by which good men live are more powerful than truth:
“Sometimes the things that may or may not be true are the things a man needs to believe in the most. That people are basically good; that honor, courage, and virtue mean everything; that power and money, money and power mean nothing; that good always triumphs over evil; and I want you to remember this, that love…true love never dies. You remember that, boy. You remember that. Doesn’t matter if it’s true or not. You see, a man should believe in those things, because those are the things worth believing in.”
Hub lives by a code. He has faith in those things not visible to the eye—in his case, honor and justice. When we live by a code, our lives becomes both easier and harder. Break the code, and we kill a part of ourselves. Abide by the code, and we live more fully human lives.
Next, there’s hope. Sometimes life is a contact sport. It throws punches at us, and those punches hurt. Sometimes they hurt so very much that we are tempted to surrender to despair, to give up the hope we have in life. How do we go on believing in God or justice, honor or love, when we take a flurry of hits we never saw coming?
Here we’ll look to Rocky Balboa.
Past his prime, his legs and wind gone, the former world champion nonetheless wants back in the ring for one more fight. The promoters of the new champion, Mason “The Line” Dixon, offer to put their man against Rocky in a bout for charity. After Rocky agrees to this arrangement, his son reproaches him, furiously accusing Rocky of overshadowing his own life and efforts, and of making a spectacle of himself by his return to the ring. The son has a point: Rocky is old, and the odds are that Dixon will either play him for a fool during their bout or knock him through the ropes. Rocky reacts to this bitter criticism by telling his son how much he loved watching him grow up and how proud he is now of his accomplishments. Then he says:
“But somewhere along the line, you changed. You stopped being you. You let people stick a finger in your face and tell you you’re no good. And when things got hard, you started looking for something to blame, like a big shadow. Let me tell you something you already know. The world ain’t all sunshine and rainbows. It’s a very mean and nasty place and I don’t care how tough you are it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain’t about how hard ya hit. It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward. That’s how winning is done! Now if you know what you’re worth, then go out and get what you’re worth. But you gotta be willing to take the hits, and not pointing fingers saying you ain’t where you wanna be because of him, or her, or anybody! Cowards do that and that ain’t you! You’re better than that!”
This is the lesson for us all: we keep moving forward. We take the hits, we get off the canvas, and we keep moving forward. Sometimes we may be staggering with grief and loss, but we keep moving forward into hope.
Finally, there’s love. Love is one more key to the meaning of life. When you come to your deathbed, students, let me assure you: You won’t care what you scored on the AP European test or how much money you have in the bank or how big your house is. No—if you have any regrets at all, you will regret not loving certain people and certain beliefs as they deserved. You’ll regret that you held back. You’ll regret not only what you said, but what you didn’t say, not only what you have done, but what you have left undone.
In Something’s Gotta Give, Erica, a playwright, has fallen in love with Harry, a man in his sixties who typically dates women thirty years his junior. Erica, who is close to Harry’s age, falls in love with Harry, but then finds him dating a younger woman. In this scene we find her weeping on a beach where her daughter Marin finds her.
Marin: Oh, mom, I hate this. Now do you get my theory about all this? You gotta self-protect.
Erica: You don’t really buy this stuff you say, do you? You don’t actually think that you can outsmart getting hurt?
Marin: I think it’s worth trying.
Erica: Listen to me. You can’t hide from love for the rest of your life because maybe it won’t work out…maybe you’ll come unglued.
Marin: Are you telling me this is good? What’s happened to you?
Erica: I think you should consider that you and I are more alike than you realize. I let someone in, and I had the time of my life.
Marin: I’ve never had the time of my life.
Erica: I know, baby. And I say this from the deepest part of my heart. What are you waiting for?
Find someone to love. Find meaningful work. Find something worthy of your belief. Do these things, and your life will have purpose.
We all want a life with purpose and meaning. But what evidence do we have of a life well lived? It’s simple. It is the state of our souls and what we have leave behind when Death decides to knock at our door.
And how do we want our interior selves to appear when we are ending our days? What should we want for the state of our soul?
Today, right now, I pray to God that when Death knocks, each of us in our hearts fits the description offered by the Skin Horse.
'Does it hurt?' asked the Rabbit.
'Sometimes,' said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. 'When you are Real you don't mind being hurt.'
'Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,' the Rabbit asked, 'or bit by bit?'
'It doesn't happen all at once,' said the Skin Horse. 'You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand.”
I then began speaking:
Since some of my students had never heard of The Velveteen Rabbit, I decided to include a portion of it here. We’ll come back to this particular passage later.
On my desk I keep a Peanuts cartoon under glass. Linus and Charlie Brown are building a snowman. Charlie Brown says: “Yesterday was my Grampa’s birthday. I asked him what the most important thing was that he had learned in his life.
“Grampa said, ‘I’ve learned that even when people ask me that question they aren’t going to listen.’”
True, perhaps. But I am an old man—I joined Medicare three months ago—and I am a teacher, and old men and teachers can’t help themselves when it comes to philosophizing and giving advice. So let’s start. I promise to keep these remarks under fifteen minutes.
“Life is difficult.”
This is the first line and first paragraph in M. Scott Peck’s The Road Less Travelled.
In the second paragraph Mr. Peck makes the point that once we recognized the truth of these three words—“Life is difficult”—our troubles immediately become more bearable.
Life, Peck says, and I agree, is hardest on those who expect ease and comfort.
If we shamble through our days believing that life should be easy, then the little things—a flat tire, a failed test, a silly quarrel with a friend—grow from molehills into mountains.
Even worse, the bigger ordeals—failing to get into that college where we so desperately sought admittance, facing a pile of bills and debt that eat up every ounce of our energy, losing a spouse or a child—seem insurmountable to those who expect an easy lives.
Life is difficult.
So how do we handle that reality?
In the Old Book, Saint Paul tells us the abiding things are faith, hope, and charity. These are known as the three theological virtues. Add to them the cardinal virtues—prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance—and you have the seven virtues.
Today let’s look at those three theological virtues and see what they promise us. And to make my points, we’ll look at them through some movies.
First, there’s faith. To believe in something worthy of our belief provides a key to the meaning of our lives.
In the movie Secondhand Lions, a boy, Walter, goes to stay for the summer with two crusty uncles. Walter wonders whether the stories they tell about their past are true. Here is a scene from the movie regarding truth and faith.
Late in the film, one of the uncles, Hub, realizes that Walter needs a piece of his lecture for young men. Here we gain a powerful insight into Hub’s philosophy of manhood, a way of thinking whose bedrock principles reveals the heart of this aging lion. It is night, and Hub and Walter are standing by the pond on the farm. Because his mother has lied to him so many times, truth has become very important to Walter, and he demands that his Uncle Hub tell him the truth about his past. Were the stories he has heard about Hub’s adventures in Europe and North Africa true? Had he really fought slave-traders, won a massive fortune by his wits, and married a beautiful woman named Jasmine? Hub has done these things, but now he stares straight into Walter’s eyes and reminds him that some of the fictions by which good men live are more powerful than truth:
“Sometimes the things that may or may not be true are the things a man needs to believe in the most. That people are basically good; that honor, courage, and virtue mean everything; that power and money, money and power mean nothing; that good always triumphs over evil; and I want you to remember this, that love…true love never dies. You remember that, boy. You remember that. Doesn’t matter if it’s true or not. You see, a man should believe in those things, because those are the things worth believing in.”
Hub lives by a code. He has faith in those things not visible to the eye—in his case, honor and justice. When we live by a code, our lives becomes both easier and harder. Break the code, and we kill a part of ourselves. Abide by the code, and we live more fully human lives.
Next, there’s hope. Sometimes life is a contact sport. It throws punches at us, and those punches hurt. Sometimes they hurt so very much that we are tempted to surrender to despair, to give up the hope we have in life. How do we go on believing in God or justice, honor or love, when we take a flurry of hits we never saw coming?
Here we’ll look to Rocky Balboa.
Past his prime, his legs and wind gone, the former world champion nonetheless wants back in the ring for one more fight. The promoters of the new champion, Mason “The Line” Dixon, offer to put their man against Rocky in a bout for charity. After Rocky agrees to this arrangement, his son reproaches him, furiously accusing Rocky of overshadowing his own life and efforts, and of making a spectacle of himself by his return to the ring. The son has a point: Rocky is old, and the odds are that Dixon will either play him for a fool during their bout or knock him through the ropes. Rocky reacts to this bitter criticism by telling his son how much he loved watching him grow up and how proud he is now of his accomplishments. Then he says:
“But somewhere along the line, you changed. You stopped being you. You let people stick a finger in your face and tell you you’re no good. And when things got hard, you started looking for something to blame, like a big shadow. Let me tell you something you already know. The world ain’t all sunshine and rainbows. It’s a very mean and nasty place and I don’t care how tough you are it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain’t about how hard ya hit. It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward. That’s how winning is done! Now if you know what you’re worth, then go out and get what you’re worth. But you gotta be willing to take the hits, and not pointing fingers saying you ain’t where you wanna be because of him, or her, or anybody! Cowards do that and that ain’t you! You’re better than that!”
This is the lesson for us all: we keep moving forward. We take the hits, we get off the canvas, and we keep moving forward. Sometimes we may be staggering with grief and loss, but we keep moving forward into hope.
Finally, there’s love. Love is one more key to the meaning of life. When you come to your deathbed, students, let me assure you: You won’t care what you scored on the AP European test or how much money you have in the bank or how big your house is. No—if you have any regrets at all, you will regret not loving certain people and certain beliefs as they deserved. You’ll regret that you held back. You’ll regret not only what you said, but what you didn’t say, not only what you have done, but what you have left undone.
In Something’s Gotta Give, Erica, a playwright, has fallen in love with Harry, a man in his sixties who typically dates women thirty years his junior. Erica, who is close to Harry’s age, falls in love with Harry, but then finds him dating a younger woman. In this scene we find her weeping on a beach where her daughter Marin finds her.
Marin: Oh, mom, I hate this. Now do you get my theory about all this? You gotta self-protect.
Erica: You don’t really buy this stuff you say, do you? You don’t actually think that you can outsmart getting hurt?
Marin: I think it’s worth trying.
Erica: Listen to me. You can’t hide from love for the rest of your life because maybe it won’t work out…maybe you’ll come unglued.
Marin: Are you telling me this is good? What’s happened to you?
Erica: I think you should consider that you and I are more alike than you realize. I let someone in, and I had the time of my life.
Marin: I’ve never had the time of my life.
Erica: I know, baby. And I say this from the deepest part of my heart. What are you waiting for?
Find someone to love. Find meaningful work. Find something worthy of your belief. Do these things, and your life will have purpose.
We all want a life with purpose and meaning. But what evidence do we have of a life well lived? It’s simple. It is the state of our souls and what we have leave behind when Death decides to knock at our door.
And how do we want our interior selves to appear when we are ending our days? What should we want for the state of our soul?
Today, right now, I pray to God that when Death knocks, each of us in our hearts fits the description offered by the Skin Horse.
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