Quaker Thought and Today - Friends Journal

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22
Religious Education
Vntues as Fruits and Gifts
of the Spirit
by Cecilia Shore and Jesse Garrison
W: product of our reflections on vir­
are writing as a mother and son
earn to describe the process and
tues. These thoughts about the different aspects
of virtues have been the focal point of
our First-day School activities over approximately
four months and have given rise to a
set of queries. We certainly don't believe that
this is a definitive list, but we have found these
questions thought-provoking. We also want
to share with you a description of the process
so that, if you wish, you could conduct your
own explorations into the nature and expression
of virtues.
This plan began taking shape in the summer
of 1996, when the theme of Ohio Valley
Yearly Meeting was "Gifts of the Spirit." Much
of our programming, for adults and children,
focused on creativiry and talents, the unique
qualities through which each individual expresses
and experiences the Divine. But as I
reflected on this theme it came together with
another line of thought and research. This
other stream came from the idea that stories
have great power for moral education. This
point of view has been expressed in a number
of recent books and articles (see bibliography
below for some examples), but probably the
best-known proponent is William Bennett, in
his A Book ofVirtues. I realized that virtues are
gifts of the Spirit, too. It is almost always easier
Cecilia Shore and jesse Garrison are members of
Oxford (Ohio) Meeting.
to do the dishonorable thing-to keep the
change when the cashier makes a mistake in
our favor, to give up when the going gets
rough, to lash out when someone frustrates us
or treats us badly-and it is God who gives us
the strength to act virtuously, to do the right
thing. Something akin to this insight is expressed
in Galatians 5:22, where Paul writes:
"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace,
long suffering, gentleness:, goodness, faith,
meekness, temperance ....
I made a poster of the Shaker Tree of Life
emblem, with room to write in the names of
virtues on the (it happened to be 14) fruits
and room around the edges to add queries
on the virtues as we went along. I was extremely
fortunate to find, in addition to the
Bennett book, an annotated bibliography,
Literature-Based Moral Education. This enabled
me to select books that I thought would
be of interest to 11-year-old Jesse, who was,
throughout this time, the only regular attendee
of First-day School. (We are grateful to Alex
Jendrek and Erin Murray, occasional attendees,
for their contributions and participation.)
Consequently, although I did make an effort
to include heroines, the list below may be
biased toward male role models. Although
Bennett includes many Bible stories in h is
collection, I chose to exclude them, since other
units of study have our Biblical heritage as a
focal point. Each week we read stories, discussed
what these stories told us about the
virtue under discussion, and wrote a query
September 1998 FRIENDS j oURNAL