I've been thinking about character.
We’ve carried on this playful debate for decades. My wife thinks generosity is the most important virtue; I think courage is.
For her, generosity is compassion in action. She cannot pass by a child selling lemonade or Girl Scout cookies without spending twenty dollars, though she often doesn’t bother taking the lemonade. (She does, however, take the cookies!) She also writes surprisingly large checks to organizations doing the kinds of justice work we believe in; she doesn’t ask, she just writes the checks and expects me to understand. She’s been an excellent volunteer and board member, and often board chair, at several social justice agencies. And she is the lawyer to children and the elderly who are unable to provide for their own defense. Generosity is her compassion in action.
What distinguishes character in a person is the sense that they live authentically. The virtues you see on the outside are a clear representation of what is inside this person. Their generosity is not a pose to get them appreciated but a genuine expression of their desire to share their abundance. Their courage is not bravado, as if bravery were a way of showing off; their courage comes from an inner commitment to give themselves to whatever challenge lies in front of them, however dangerous the circumstances. People of character embrace the ugly or marginalized or oppositional not to draw attention or to garner applause or votes, but because they know deep inside themselves that every human being is of ultimate worth, whatever their appearance or circumstances.
Touch character like clinking the edge of fine crystal with a spoon and there is a clarity of tone, a sense of genuineness: this person is the real thing. A person of character does not have an on-stage presence that differs from their off-stage presence. Their virtue is not a performance; it comes from the inside out. As they speak and act, you are hearing and seeing the soul of them.
Character may develop as the slow growth that begins in childhood and adolescence, when parents or other adult figures serve as examples of authenticity and nudge a young person toward the same qualities. Such modeling of authenticity then emerges in adulthood, particularly when a person is under the strain of important decisions. What has grown up inside them shows up in their responses.
Character may also be forged in suffering. When a person is driven to their knees they may doubt their ability to recover, having never faced such defeat. But some people, often to their surprise, find in themselves what they didn’t expect: the capacity to rebuild what was broken, to re-define what was too fragile. They find in themselves an authentic strength they did not know they had.
I’ve been thinking about character with more than usual interest since Russia invaded Ukraine, because I’ve observed what is now obvious: Volodymyr Zelenskyy has character. The former comedian in his military-green tee shirt sits resolutely behind his presidential desk in Kyiv, or mingles with soldiers or victims of war’s horrors, single-handedly inspiring his people and galvanizing the world with his defiance and his blunt talk. For me, here’s the clearest expression of his character so far: in the first weeks of the invasion, when the US offered to send a plane to rescue him and his family, he responded, The fight is here; I need ammunition, not a ride.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, center, arrives Wednesday to attend a military drill outside the city of Rivne, northern Ukraine. (Ukrainian Presidential Press Office via AP)
This is more than virtue; this is character.
Michelle Obama once famously said, I've seen firsthand that being president doesn't change who you are. It reveals who you are. Not all of us will be president, but most if not all of us will face circumstances that test us and challenge us and reveal who we really are. In some of us, these circumstances will reveal the depth of our character: we are on the inside what we appear to be on the outside. In others, our lack of character will be exposed.
At the risk of sounding even more vain than I am, I want to share with you something about the development of my own character. There were certain strengths that emerged early in my life. I always worked hard, whether at sports or odd jobs or, when it finally found me, my Christian faith. I was never the best athlete on any team but was often elected captain; I was never the smartest student in any class but was often elected its president. I was an excellent preacher and teacher and a good-enough church administrator, all of which barely disguised the anxiety with which I was fraught throughout my professional ascent. I was an able leader on the outside but more fragile on the inside than leaders need to be, more fragile than I or anyone around me recognized.
At forty, my life came apart over issues of character. It became clear that what I appeared to be masked the anxiety that roiled in me, which I impulsively acted upon. I was unfaithful in my marriage, in my role as a father, in my calling as a minister, and to my community of friends. Whatever I had accomplished I now deconstructed until whatever fragments of character I had lay in ruins.
I then spent twenty years working hard – a virtue I still possessed – to build a less fragile, less public, sturdier character, and over time I could sense that I was getting stronger. There was an increasing harmony between the way I lived in the world and the way I thought and felt and imagined myself to be on the inside. I was living more authentically.
When I was nearing sixty, our younger son died in a traffic accident, which pushed pain so deep into me that, two decades later, I can still touch the wound that never heals. For a time, I wondered if my budding character might collapse from the unfairness of his senseless death and the depth of my grief, or if my old impulsive self would emerge from some inner closet into which I had stuffed it.
Forty-two years after my midlife collapse and twenty-two years after our son’s death, I find that the suffering I’ve been through in both episodes was a school. In it, I defined a character that now fits me from the inside out. The virtues that I had have been clarified and tempered. I’m more honest, my courage is quiet but sturdy, I fight against any assault on my integrity. I've learned how to love with constancy and open-heartedness.
My expressions of these virtues is not a performance. I am, from day to day, exactly who I appear to be.
Blessings,
Rick
Hi, I’m Rick Thyne and I’m grateful that you found your way to these pages. Perhaps in these conversations we’ll find our way to more of the common good that is - for me - our best hope for a future in which all of us thrive. If you've found this column and would like to get my latest column delivered, free, to your inbox every two weeks, you can subscribe now.