Teaching our children how to live effectively as Christians in society: Someone is watching!
(These lessons have been adapted from so many sources over the years of working with parents that I no longer know what came from whom or where. My apologies for lack of attribution to the many wonderful teachers and authors and therapists with whom I have worked and under whose instruction I have been able to sit and receive.
Most of all, a special 'thank you' to our daughters, Jene' and Jenise, who so patiently and graciously endured my years of trial and error in parenting them through their formative years. jh)
Parenting is patterning: Don’t do as I do; do as I say!
Parenting is discipling: teaching, leading – to educate…
“Educate” has three Latin roots: e duc are, to bring up, rear, or train a child; e duc ere, out, bring out; and duc ere, to lead, draw, or bring. Combining the roots, most scholars define “e duc ate” as to bring out, as in bring out the best or bring out knowledge. This implies there is something within to cultivate, to bring out.
Edward L. Davis “Lessons for Tomorrow”
To disciple is to bring a discipline: discipuli - one who learns; student
Punishing is not discipling: poena – revenge; root of the words pain, penalty, penitentiary, and penance
Discipling is leading: imitatio Christi – to imitate or be like Christ
Basic ingredients necessary for civilization and their relevance to Christianity, families, and churches:
Civitas – ci vitas
Living together; life in co-existence
Civil – opposite of military
Not run by military rules and codes but by citizens of reputation such that they can stand for office
Civil – opposite of hostile
Peaceful, with agreement
Civic – the whole community
In terms of mutual beneficence
Now, which of these are we raising our children to fit into?
Basic ingredients necessary for civilization and their relevance to Christianity, families, and churches:
Gravitas – Gravitas is a Latin noun that, as a modern loanword, conveys a sense of substance or depth of personality.
In an ancient Roman context, the word gravitas communicated a sense of dignity, seriousness, and duty. Gravitas is one of three virtues that Ancient Roman society expected men to possess, along with pietas and dignitas.
Helping our kids to know the difference between what is serious and what isn’t.
What is serious? When should we lighten up?
Pietas - Pietas was one of the Roman virtues, along with gravitas and dignitas. Pietas is usually translated as "duty" or "devotion," and it simultaneously suggests duty to the gods and duty to family - particularly to the father (which is expanded to duty to the community and duty to the state thanks to the analogy between the family and the state, conventional in the ancient world – see, for example, Plato's Crito). Virgil's hero Aeneas embodies this virtue, and is particularly emblematic of it in book II of the Aeneid when he flees burning Troy bearing his father on his back and carrying his household gods.
Dignity: Dignitas was a unique social concept in the ancient Roman mindset. The word does not have a direct connotation or translation in English. Some interpretations include dignity (merely a derivation) and prestige. To an extent, it was the sum total of the personal clout and influence a male citizen acquired throughout his life. When weighing the dignitas of a particular individual, factors such as personal reputation, moral standing, and ethical worth had to be considered, along with his entitlement to respect and proper treatment. As the cultivation of dignitas was extremely personal, Roman men of all classes (most particularly noblemen of Consular families), were highly protective and zealous of this asset. Most were prepared to kill, commit suicide (as in the famous case of Marcus Antonius), or go into exile, in order to preserve this most treasured asset.
Basic ingredients necessary for civilization and their relevance to Christianity, families, and churches:
Veritas – truth
What is the relationship between ‘truth’ and ‘trust?’ Can there be trust without feeling that truth is being told?
How do we model truth? Are we honest with our kids? With anyone else? Consistently?
How do we speak ‘truth with love?’ Explain what you think the Apostle Paul meant by this statement, “Speak the truth in love.”
How do we model truth with tact? Can we be tactful and still tell the truth? Why should we be teaching our kids to be tactful? Do we want them to consider lying as the method of getting along or sparing someone’s feelings or getting them out of an embarrassing situation?
Basic ingredients necessary for civilization and their relevance to Christianity, families, and churches:
Noblesse Oblige – obligation of benevolence
Who among us is noble? The Apostle Paul told the Corinthians that not many among them were noble. It’s all a game of comparisons – Corinthians compared to the Athenians compared to the Romans compared to the Ephesians, etc.
We do similar things:
– ‘so and so has more money, they need to’…or,
– ‘her family needs to help her.’
What is ‘being noble?’ Let’s remove the comparison and contrast from this
– singular act or state of being (attitude or act)?
– Is there a difference between nobility and noble?
– How do we ‘be noble?’
– How do we recognize that we are among the ‘noblesse?’
Why should we do things out of obligation? I’ve always been told that if we don’t do something with the right attitude it doesn’t count…
- doesn’t count to whom?
- Doesn’t count for what?
- What if everyone only did things because they wanted to, or
- when they had the right attitude?
What role does humility have in this ‘noblesse oblige?’
- What attitude is the ‘right attitude?’
- How do we teach our children to have a ‘right attitude?’
- How can someone, child or adult, learn to have a ‘right attitude’ even when doing something under ‘obligation?’
Basic ingredients necessary for civilization and their relevance to Christianity, families, and churches:
Compassion – appropriate emotional responses
We are to come alongside their ‘passion.’
We must be careful to keep our emotions out of the vortex of their struggles and sorrows.
Someone in the struggle has to be able to swim to shore; or pull the floundering one to high ground.
Basic ingredients necessary for civilization and their relevance to Christianity, families, and churches:
Honor – different from respect
Define respectable:
behavior, attitudes, etc.
Define honorable:
behavior, attitudes, etc.
Who possesses honor, the people or the one being honored?
If the town were to honor a hero…
Can you bestow something you do not possess?
Can you honor someone who isn’t honorable?
We 'earn' respect; and we 'bestow' honor.
How does one earn respect?
By being respectable?
How does one ‘bestow’ honor?
Actions?
Attitudes?
We can honor people even if they aren't respectable. It is our choice as to whether and when we bestow honor. We are to 'honor our father and our mother.' Learning the difference between honoring and respecting is imperative for children living in terribly dysfunctional or abusive family situations.
Basic ingredients necessary for civilization and their relevance to Christianity, families, and churches:
Duty – doing what you are supposed to do just because…
Pietas - Pietas was one of the Roman virtues, along with gravitas and dignitas. Pietas is usually translated as "duty" or "devotion," and it simultaneously suggests duty to the gods and duty to family - particularly to the father (which is expanded to duty to the community and duty to the state thanks to the analogy between the family and the state, conventional in the ancient world.
Define these sentences:
Duty or devotion:
To God – “doing what you are supposed to do just because…”
Faithfulness; service; obedience; “devout”
To family – “doing what you are supposed to do just because…”
Loyalty; dependability; ‘blood thicker than water…’;
To the community – “doing what you are supposed to do just because…”
Citizenship; ‘good neighbor’;
To the ‘state’ – “doing what you are supposed to do just because…”
In the ancient world of tribes and clans and ancestral homeland, why would there be an analogy between family and ‘state’?
How has ‘nationalism’ become the surrogate for tribalism?
Basic ingredients necessary for civilization and their relevance to Christianity, families, and churches:
Integrity – being a whole person without a hidden agenda
in·teg·ri·ty n. Steadfast adherence to a strict moral or ethical code. The state of being unimpaired; soundness; being intact; having wholeness.
Integrity is the basing of one's actions on an internally consistent framework of principles. Depth of principles and adherence of each level to the next are key determining factors
What is it to be a person of integrity?
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy – online poses these thoughts:
Can a person have integrity even though that person may hold mistaken but important moral views?
Does ‘integrity’ refer to the quality of a person's character?
‘Integrity’ has other applications:
When it is applied to objects, integrity refers to the wholeness, intactness or purity of a thing—meanings that are sometimes carried over when it is applied to people.
A wilderness region has integrity when it has not been corrupted by development or by the side-effects of development, when it remains intact as wilderness.
A database maintains its integrity as long as it remains uncorrupted by error; a defense system as long as it is not breached.
A musical work might be said to have integrity when its musical structure has a certain completeness that is not intruded upon by uncoordinated, unrelated musical ideas; that is, when it possesses a kind of musical wholeness, intactness and purity.
Integrity is also attributed to various parts or aspects of a person's life. We speak of attributes such as professional, intellectual and artistic integrity.
Perhaps the most philosophically important sense of the term ‘integrity’ relates to general character - for a person to exhibit integrity throughout life.