Reverence

Four times a year a get this nifty little magazine in the mail from Brigham Young University--it's one of the "perks" for being an alumni, along with the regular requests for fund donations, that make me wonder why i'm not making enough money to feel like I can EVER make a donation that means anything. :)

Luckily, I don't feel overly guilty if I make a token $10 donation every couple of years. One day when I'm RICH I will call THEM to take my money.

But that wasn't the subject of this blog... it was the magazine article.

I don't usually read this magazine. It sits in a pile with the mail I feel like I SHOULD read, but never get to, and then ends up in the garbage when I have a huge cleaning adventure. This time, however, I was intrigued by the opening article titled Renewing Reverence by Paul Woodruff. It is adapted from a forum address he gave at BYU in January. I'll post some of the most interesting quotes here.

I was hoping I could link to the full article on the web, but all they have available is the audio of the address, so if you'd like to listen you can click here.

"...justice is not enough to provide us with the stable communities we need to survive. Justice by itself can be harsh, unfeeling, divisive. The losers in a court of law, even though they may deserve to lose, may be alienated and angry and bitter. There is a reason why courts of law are hedged around with reverent ceremony. The reason is that reverence pulls us together. And we need to be pulled together around acts of justice, and justice alone is not enough to do that. Justice by itself can divide us, but reverence pulls us together."

"Reverence is an ethical virtue that is most important and valuable in human life when people have great power over others. Reverence is remembering not to carry on as if you were a diety of some kind. Reverence is this memory of being human, with all that that means, that is fostered by a well-devleoped capacity for feeling awe at that which is awe inspiring, because feelings of awe remind us of our humanity. Reverence is the basis for respect, and the language of reverence is ceremonial. Its effect on us is restraint in the use of power."

"A reverent classroom is where learning is most likely to take place. In a reverent classroom neither the students nor the teacher interrupts. In a reverent classroom there is a ceremonial observance of respect... You may suppose that ceremony of raising your hands and waiting to be called upon is an empty ritual. In america these days we tend to associate the words empty and useless with ceremony and ritual, but surely the ceremonies of a reverent classroom are not empty and they are not useless. There is a kind of reverence in the classroom-- reverence for what is to be learned, for the truth, which is awe inspiring, somewhat mysterious because no on in the room knows all of it, and not under anyone's control."

"...reverence is also the difference between a home and a shelter where people sleep and eat. All cultures need to keep the family circle healthy because the family circle is foundational for a healthy society. "

"there's a huge cost to letting your rituals and ceremonies become empy. Reverence is what keeps your ceremonies from being empty.

Good stuff, huh??