Attitudes

I went a bit far last week by saying the Fruit of the Spirit (Gal 5,22) are attitudes. I was using worldly terms. In worldly terms it is true. Attitudes are formed by drawing moral conclusions from our experiences. It is our choice what we make of our experience. Facing adversity, we can give up or persevere. Being mistreated, we can forgive or seek revenge. Missing our goal, we can curse or pray. We are free to choose.

My topic was „happiness“. If happiness is a feeling, it is too fickle and shallow to  be a goal. What we really seek is deeper. You might call it the joy in God - a deep sense of being valued, secure in the midst of insecure circumstances. Do we see circumstances as fate, or as an opportunity to grow in character? It’s our choice. F.D.Roosevelt is quoted: „Fate is 20% circumstances and 80% attitude.“ I like that. We see this in a positive sense in biblical and extra-biblical life stories: Joseph, Moses, Esther … Bonhoeffer, Anne Frank, Nick Vuicic - to name just a few who seemed doomed to a cruel fate but left a great legacy to generations.

In the school where I taught, we installed a curricular program called PATHS. One of the social learnings was that feelings simply come and go, but what we do with them is our responsibility. I was often amazed how even first-graders had responsible attitudes toward their feelings and interactions.