Echoes
Jesus was all virtue, and acted from impulse, not from rules.
William Blake
The Complete Illuminated Books
When a granddaughter was five years old, we took her to see her first play, The Wizard of Oz.
She liked it. She was entranced (she had the video and knew the songs and the plot already), and tapped her foot in tempo to the music. Then we went to a restaurant, and while we were eating, she paused, stared at her food, looked up, and said, “I wish my mom and dad could have come.”
What made this powerful for me, was the clear sense that she was not “being good” or polite or appropriate. Nor was she pouting or moping. She was not criticizing us for not inviting her parents. It arose straight out of her heart, free of expectation. And it was powerful.
While listening to Mother Teresa speak in a large auditorium years ago, I could tell that she had the exact same source for her doing good. It just ascended out of a heart that had been radically reordered. I mean heart, too; that is, her goodness seemed to be pre‑philosophical; she didn’t reach that place of giving within herself by thinking about it, but by allowing her heart to be overwhelmed, not by sentimentality, but by both human need and her own nature.
It raises serious questions about “moral education.” I hope to teach the next generation about generosity and caring about others and doing all kinds of right action. But my efforts to convince them to behave morally seem to backfire when I preach (which is often), rather than take them with me when I help someone.
Jesus was all virtue, and acted from impulse, not from rules.
William Blake
The Complete Illuminated Books