Good Citizenship Awards - The Really Gold Medal
Many of our colonial forefathers intended for us to pursue lives of virtue. What did they mean?
That was an easy question for Thomas Jefferson. His definition of a virtuous person was Psalm 15, which he referred to many times in his life, in public meetings and in personal correspondence. It was his basis for determining righteous behavior.
Samuel Adams and George Washington also referred to this short, simply written Psalm.
It is an easy Psalm to memorize, which undoubtedly Jefferson did.
Verse 1: LORD, who may dwell in your sanctuary? Who may live on your holy hill?
Verse 2: He whose walk is blameless
and who does what is righteous,
who speaks the truth from his heart.
Verse 3: and has no slander on his tongue,
who does his neighbor no wrong
and casts no slur on his fellowman,
Verse 4: who despises the vile man
but honors those who fear the LORD,
who keeps his oath
even when it hurts,
Verse 5: who lends his money without usury
and does not accept a bribe against the innocent.
He who does these things will never be shaken.
It's all so profoundly simple....
A virtuous person, a righteous person...
1. lives a blameless life. (That does not mean perfect. It means that the person does what is right, and when he does sin, he asks forgiveness, corrects the problem, if needed, and so keeps his slate clean.)
2. does what is righteous
3. speaks the truth
4. does not slander
5. does not do things that would hurt his neighbor
6. does not make his fellowman look bad
7. does not honor a wicked, evil person
8. does honor those who love God
9. keeps his oath, even when it is hard
10. lends his money willingly, without thought of profiting from another's misfortune
11. does not take a bribe to put an innocent person in peril.
This is the kind of man Thomas Jefferson aspired to be. And according to his neighbors and family and friends, he did a pretty good job of living this kind of life.
Jefferson, Adams, Washington, Franklin, and others of our founding fathers thought that these kinds of citizens would be able to preserve their hard-won liberty.
--Letter from Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, 1819.No government can continue good but under the control of the people; and...their minds informed by education what is right and what is wrong; to be encouraged in habits of virtue....
In 1774 the Boston Port was closed by King George III and his parliament. This was punishment for the Boston Tea Party (December, 1773) and was meant to bring Boston to its knees.
Thomas Jefferson, meeting in the House of Burgesses in his home colony, Virginia, decided to declare a day of prayer, humiliation, and fasting, for June 1, 1774, "to implore Heaven to avert from us the evils of civil war [the colonists were not generally thinking of independence at that time], to inspire us in firmness in support of our rights, and to turn the hearts of the King and Parliament to moderation and justice..."
Jefferson noted that no such day had been proclaimed in Virginia since 1755 [that was the beginning of the French and Indian War in the colonies], "since which a new generation had grown up."
Additionally, Jefferson urged the clergy "to meet assemblies of the people on the 1st of June, to perform the ceremonies of the day and to address to them discourses suited to the occasion."
Two hundred years later, a Britisher, C. S. Lewis, a descendant of some of those men in King George III's Parliament, had this to say about virtue:
There is a difference between doing some particular just or temperate action and being a just or temperate man.
Someone who is not a good tennis player may now and then make a good shot.-----------------------
What you mean by a good player is the man whose eye and muscles and nerves have been so trained by making innumerable good shots that they can now be relied on. They have a certain tone or quality which is there even when he is not playing, just as a mathematician's mind has a certain habit and outlook which is there even when he is not doing mathematics.
In the same way a man who perseveres in doing just actions gets in the end a certain quality of character. Now it is that quality rather than the particular actions which we mean when we talk of "virtue."
Watch your thoughts - they become your words
Watch your words - they become your actions
Watch your actions - they become your habits
Watch your habits - they become your character
Watch your character - it becomes who you really are
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