Since my youth, I’ve been inspired by people whose goodness touches the lives of people who have little in the way of essential affection, financial security, or the basic needs of existence. Something about the generous way these persons go about being kind and showing concern, without trying to attract attention to themselves, encourages me find and share my latent virtues, too.
I was reminded of this when I read Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life, by Dacher Keltner. When Keltner and his team asked thousands of people around the globe what led them to feel awe, to their surprise the most common experience was not nature, music, or a spiritual practice. “In fact, it was other people’s courage, kindness, strength, or overcoming. Around the world, we are most likely to feel awe when moved by moral beauty, the first wonder of life in our taxonomy.” The author goes on to explain: “Exceptional virtue, character, and ability—moral beauty—operate according to a different aesthetic, one marked by purity and goodness of intention and action, and moves us to awe.”
Just about the time I begin to doubt whether moral beauty exists in this suffocating-with-self-interest-society, along comes a witness of how awe remains alive and thriving. When visiting friends, I learned that Tim and another man spend a good portion of their Fridays driving to supermarkets and other food outlets where they gather large amounts of food the stores can no longer sell. They load all this into a van, then unload it to be distributed to local food pantries. These two kind-hearted individuals volunteer, as do thousands of others assisting in homeless shelters, nursing homes, youth detention facilities, school-street-crossings, drug rehabilitation programs, and countless non-profit organizations.
Moral beauty gets resurrected, too, when friends and strangers come to the assistance of people devastated by natural disasters, cancer and other life-threatening illnesses, or deaths, especially those caused by violence. But we need not wait for our moral beauty to show itself until life’s unfairness or some devastating event beats people down. Each day of Lent the action of moral beauty can show itself by the way we live. This “ordinary awesomeness” revealed itself when I wrote the reflections in Jesus, Guide of My Life. The guidance coming forth from this mentor of goodness contains various aspects of our core virtues—qualities reflecting moral beauty, such as kindness, understanding, forgiveness, compassion, generosity, and open-heartedness.
Caring individuals exist everywhere, quietly and unassumingly offering support and alleviating some of the heavy burdens weighing on others. Their efforts assure me that the moral beauty humans are capable of has not withered. As Lent approaches. I wonder how awe-some our forty days will be.
Abundant peace,
Joyce Rupp
P.S. Below, you will find a litany of one-liner prayers for each day of Lent. Feel free to use or not use, for yourself and/or with others.
“A Graced Heart in Lent”, Joyce Rupp
In the Judaic tradition, heart is the crucible
of a person’s true essence. (Gail Godwin)
1. Return my heart when it is lost.
2. Warm my heart when it is cold.
3. Embrace my heart when it is lonely.
4. Strengthen my heart when it is weak.
5. Widen my heart when it is narrow.
6. Rest my heart when it is weary.
7. Open my heart when it is closed.
8. Caution my heart when it is careless.
9. Straighten my heart when it is crooked.
10. Soften my heart when it is hard.
11. Enlighten my heart when it is searching.
12. Repair my heart when it is broken.
13. Call home my heart when it is straying.
14. Relieve my heart when it is burdened.
15. Engage my heart when it is bored.
16. Direct my heart when it is disoriented.
17. Quiet my heart when it is wrestling.
18. Console my heart when it is sorrowful.
19. Unloosen my heart when it is controlling.
20. Calm my heart when it is anxious.
21. Entice my heart when it is distracted.
22. Ration my heart when it is greedy.
23. Focus my heart when it is blurred.
24. Encourage my heart when it is dejected.
25. Restore my heart when it is faltering.
26. Beckon my heart when it is exiled.
27. Heal my heart when it is ailing.
28. Peace my heart when it is troubled.
29. Nurture my heart when it is empty.
30. Raise my heart when it is downcast.
31. Urge my heart when it is hesitant.
32. Expand my heart when it is withered.
33. Nurture my heart when it is depleted.
34. Embolden my heart when it is fearful.
35. Tame my heart when it is uncontrolled.
36. Soothe my heart when it is fretting.
37. Revive my heart when it is parched.
38. Assure my heart when it is hesitant.
39. Gentle my heart when it is harsh.
40. Welcome my heart when it is returning.
(Easter) Rejoice my heart when it is ready.
