All people fail us. At one point or another, each person betrays the bond that they have made with us. This is not an excuse to cut off our relationships, though. It is still right and prudent to invest in people and relationships. But to protect our soul against heartbreak, we must also develop even stronger bonds to the ideal and the transcendent, which will never fail us. Just as we have a relationship with people, we can, and must, have a relationship with each of the virtues. And then we remain committed to the relationship, not just for the person, but for the ideal’s sake.
So,
Become married to the ideal of marriage Begin a romance with romance Be a friend of friendship Fall in love with love And be loyal to loyalty
Performing a virtue is always more challenging, and requires greater strength of character, than to perform its counterpart vice.
If I were to tell you that one man killed for his cause, and that another man died for his cause, which man would you say held the greater commitment and resolve to his cause? Obviously, the man that was willing to die.
So, too, it is more impressive to admit the truth than tell a lie, more inspiring to give away a fortune than to amass it, and more meaningful to restore peace than to start a feud.
We do not applaud the vice because we know it is very easy to do, whereas the virtue is always accomplished by walking upstream, against one’s own nature, and thus truly extraordinary. Any man that lives by virtue is forever greater than the one that lives by vice.
It is less important to be equal than to be enough.
That isn’t to say that there isn’t a value to equality. Rooting out unfair disadvantages and gross discrimination have their place, but every virtue is bounded by others and each can be taken too far.
Perfect equality is not always the ideal and is not always possible. When a baby is first born, it should receive more care than its older brothers and sisters. The wise should receive more attention than the foolish. The innocent should have more liberty than the guilty.
Even the natural universe follows the pareto principle, in which an uneven distribution is evident, and the minority possess the majority of the resources. In the ant colony there is only one queen and tens of thousands of workers. Only 1% of all mosquito eggs will reach adulthood and reproduce. Ours is the only planet out of thousands studied to have all the correct conditions to support life. The universe is not equal.
So, while it is again worthy to root out flagrant and malicious inequality, one has to have a nuanced appreciation for the fact that absolute equality is impossible. The unbridled pursuit of it can only yield frustration and counter-productivity. Every historical example of absolute and mandated equality has ended in disaster.
In the long run, “is it enough” is a more reasonable consideration than “is it equal.” As mentioned before, the older brother may not receive equal care to his infant sister, but we can ask “is he receiving enough?” Are his physical and emotional needs being adequately met? If it is not enough, he should receive more. If it is enough, then it is enough. Are enough ants born as queen to keep their species alive? If not, they will go extinct. If it is enough, then is it enough.
Over the course of our lives we will never be perfectly equal to all others. In some ways we will always have less, and in some ways we will always have more. But do we have enough? Can we make do with our disadvantages? Can God make up for what we lack? If we can find our way to enough, then it is enough.
For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it.
Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.
COMMENTARY
But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it We have previously noted that God would not have put this divide between us and Him unless it was for our own good. One of the good qualities that this brings about in us is patience. Patience is a virtue that is too easily forgotten. We all know that faith is supremely important, but there cannot be any faith without patience. Faith is putting trust and confidence in a yet-unrealized good, it is anticipating a blessing that we do not yet hold. By necessity, there is a period of time between us establishing our faith and our receiving the fruits of it. But we won’t be able to get through that period unless we are willing to wait…with patience.
But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing Patience is both a means and an end. By exercising it we stop demanding that we be given things right now, and so we become content, “wanting nothing.” But then, having become a patient being, we receive all, and thus are “wanting nothing” in an entirely different sense. We long to see our Father, it is a desire ingrained in our infinite soul. What better way to teach us patience than to remove the possibility for that very thing? We have to make our peace with living incomplete. But if we have made our peace, then we are complete. And then, being complete, we are ready to receive the Father.
Spiritual Wanderings 