{"id":15482,"date":"2021-06-16T18:57:22","date_gmt":"2021-06-16T22:57:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=15482"},"modified":"2021-06-16T18:57:22","modified_gmt":"2021-06-16T22:57:22","slug":"in-praise-of-virtue-i-do-not-possess","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=15482","title":{"rendered":"In praise of virtue I do not possess"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Photo credit: Jeff Ochoa@jeffochoa, Unsplash<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

No book to review tonight<\/strong>. So, you\u2019re stuck with my deep thoughts. \u201cI got a million of \u2018em,\u201d as Jimmy Durante (or somebody) used to say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Back on Memorial Day I was talking about how young men are (usually) risk-takers. I got to wondering, \u201cWhat\u2019s the survival value of youthful risk-taking?\u201d Its value would seem to be the opposite of survival.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(I don\u2019t want to get into the Creation vs. Evolution thing here. I think survival value is a real thing, created by God. It\u2019s just the way He designed things to work.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One would assume that Nature (whether intelligently designed or not) would want young people to stay safe until they grew up. So they\u2019d go on to produce further offspring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But in fact, Nature drives young men (typically) to go out and try to kill themselves. Drag-racing. Sky diving. Rock climbing. Joining gangs or (sometimes more responsibly) armies. Experimenting with drugs. Asking cheerleaders out on dates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(I, of course, never did any of these things myself. But there were consequences to playing it safe.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The point, I think, is that Nature is wise, and under God\u2019s governance. As I\u2019ve mentioned before, I believe that God is a storyteller. His book of Nature is not an equation or formula. It\u2019s partly about science, but it\u2019s also about love and hate and ideals and passions. And one of the things storytelling tells us is that safety is not first. \u201cWho dares wins.\u201d \u201cFaint heart ne\u2019er won fair lady.\u201d \u201cDo not take counsel of your fears.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both in the spiritual and the physical worlds, too much caution is fatal, at least in the aggregate. Cowardice would appear to have survival value, but it doesn\u2019t. Cowardly communities do not thrive. Courage kills off some of its acolytes, but those who survive end up running things and making progress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think churches often work too hard to produce guys like me. The Kingdom is for risk-takers \u2013 \u201cMen of violence take it by force.\u201d (Matthew 11:12) In a feminizing world, we need to provide a place where risks can still be taken, wounds bound up, and locker room speeches delivered. To young men with skinned knees and black eyes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

No book to review tonight. So, you\u2019re stuck with my deep thoughts. \u201cI got a million of \u2018em,\u201d as Jimmy Durante (or somebody) used to say. Back on Memorial Day I was talking about how young men are (usually) risk-takers. I got to wondering, \u201cWhat\u2019s the survival value of youthful risk-taking?\u201d Its value would seem … Continue reading In praise of virtue I do not possess<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[14,1],"tags":[3741,3740],"class_list":["post-15482","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-religion","category-uncategorized","tag-risk-taking","tag-young-men"],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15482","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15482"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15482\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15483,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15482\/revisions\/15483"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15482"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}