Growing up, I learned about the virtues. Everybody talked about them, in fact, they were all the hype. I remember sitting in my Baha’i Children’s Class and being encouraged to memorize 10 of them. Kindness, love, humility, courage, tact, unity, obedience, compassion, generosity, respect… Learning about the virtues, or “the building blocks of our character”, was easily the most important and prominent part of the class.
As an adult, I don’t get to attend Baha’i Children’s Class, but instead make a point to set aside time to discuss virtues with my friends. Recently, I realized that I’d stopped thinking about one of the virtues I’d memorized as a child: obedience. Wait. Is obedience a virtue?
Kindness, love, humility. These virtues, with the foundation of truthfulness, stand alone. These elements of one’s character will always be a positive force. Obedience can easily go either way. Without discernment, for instance, obedience can cause a lot of harm.
I reached out to my trusted friend, Nooshi Saberi, who works with an organization called The Virtues Project. She pointed out to me that obedience is not typically listed as a virtue, but can be found in The Family Virtues Guide by Linda Kavelin Popov, a tool for raising children. We took a moment to talk about what obedience would look like as a virtue.
Firstly, we have the building-blocks. We use discernment, the ability to draw upon one’s own experiences and intuition, and make a judgement in the moment. We need to take responsibility for our choices and practice self-discipline in order to follow through with those decisions.
The execution of obedience may prove to be difficult, outside of one’s comfort zone, or even painful – even if it’s the right choice. Courage in the face of a difficult task gives us the confidence to face our fears, and the fortitude to make sacrifices.
Lastly, when one has used their inner strength to practice obedience with a solid basis of virtues, the result is trustworthiness. When we’ve demonstrated that we can take responsibility for our choices, practice self-discipline in our follow-through, and done so with the certitude that comes with the application of courage, we’ve proven our integrity.
After our conversation, I felt grateful for my friendship with Nooshi. Discussing obedience in the language of the virtues showed me that perhaps it cannot be categorized as a virtue in the same way as others, but that it can be the sum of many of them. I realized, however, that I’d not actually learned anything new. I learned this very same lesson as a child, and it has served me well my entire life. As a matter of fact, I had almost forgotten that nearly two decades ago, Nooshi was my Children’s Class teacher.
In 1963, in his Letter from Birmingham Jail, Martin Luther King Jr. wrote:
“One may well ask, ‘How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?’ The answer is found in the fact that there are two types of laws: There are just laws and there are unjust laws. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.”
Emily Mahbobi, BMus (UVic), is a pianist, composer, and music executive in Victoria, BC. She is a part-owner of Quadratic Sound, a studio dedicated to serving Victoria’s music community. Emily is a member of the Baha’i Community.
You can read more articles on our interfaith blog, Spiritually Speaking HERE: /blogs/spiritually-speaking
* This article was published in the print edition of the Times 91原创 on Saturday, August 20th 2022
