One of my sons surprised me in a group conversation recently. A cluster of mostly family members was recalling negative aspects of one of our relatives, long deceased. When asked for his perspective my son quietly said, “I don’t talk negatively about the deceased.” I was proud.
Mortality has always been a fascinating and quietly scary aspect of humanity. The event of witnessing a person dying must have mystified prehistoric people, medieval thinkers, and every other generation, to see somebody you know well and personally, stop living. That moment has catalyzed a major portion of religious thought forever. Death witnessers invariably ask “Where did they go?” They were here a minute ago, and now lifeless. Where are they now, if anywhere?
That moment is the generator of an entire section of theology, called soteriology — What happens to us after we die?
One of our many ways of meeting that moment, observing a human death, is to develop rituals, set habits, repeated precise actions, that eventually become tried and true traditions. Most of the hundreds of world cultures pass on to their descendants, ways to incorporate into their minds and hearts, the end of a human being. All of those rituals include a component of solemnity, an honoring of the importance of the event, and the utter powerlessness of humanity to alter it. In anybody who pays attention to that moment, there is at least a smidgen of awe.
This is particularly true of the rituals for people we knew, cherished, or respected for their contribution to humanity. Soldiers for example, and especially military heroes. In virtue language, such depth of respect felt naturally by many if not most people, is the virtue of reverence. From the Latin, it means “to stand in awe of, respect, honor, fear“.
In the line of remarkable humans who spoke and wrote specifically about virtue, and thus have contributed to the development of character language, the teacher most specific about reverence for rituals was Confucius, the Chinese champion of character.
As a young man, Confucious turned to aspirations of being a teacher, which he was. His passionate conviction was that the only way to develop a flourishing nation was by teaching virtues to children as they grew up. He spent much of his life trying to convince the several kings around his home province of Shandong, to implement a project to do this with children all through their regions. He failed. None of them ever did so.
The story doesn’t end there, however. A few hundred years later Confucius’ ideas became highly popular and shaped the education and development of Chinese people for centuries.
Of the handful of primary principles of Confucius’s philosophy (he was no theologian or religious leader) one was called Li. It was a developed ability to pay special attention to three areas: 1) ceremonies regarding ancestors; 2) social and political entities; and 3) daily etiquette. Confucius taught that a top leader has a solid responsibility to honor the need of a country to ritualize important events of history, such as the death of a popular leader, a major natural disaster, or a great military success or failure, with rituasl that consolidated the feelings of those monumental events into the persisting values of the people.
Li in Confucius’s terms was a major reason for the widespread outrage of the U.S. population when a hoard of zealots swarmed and occupied the national Capital on January 6, 2021. Their purpose was to stop a nearly sacred function of a president handing over the nation’s top leadership, peacefully to the elected successor. A similar outrage followed in some citizens, especially military personnel, at the disruption by the entourage of a presidential candidate at the national cemetery in Arlington VA in August of 2024.
While it is not a president’s role to design appropriate national rituals, it is their role to honor those rituals and promote them with solemnity, reverence, and taste. Does it matter that he was no longer president? While casually dismissing the customary solemnity of honoring deceased war heroes and others who died in service of the country is not necessarily a deal breaker for electing a person for leadership at any level of government, it remains a key characteristic of quality leaders. Without it, at crucial times, there is only boorish groping that wastes tragic events that could support camaraderie and communal support into the identity and patriotism of an entire community, city, state, and even a nation.
One can learn such values and skills while in office, by listening to the sustaining staff and officials who were there long before the current leader and will be there long after. But it takes a solid bit of reverence in the personality of a leader to learn such reverence and fulfill that responsibility well, or even adequately. That component of reverence must come from the heart of the leader.
Reverence in the hearts of the builders inspired decades of construction of some immense and elaborate churches in Europe. Reverence is what pulls tears from attendees at funerals and memorial services and designated places like cemeteries and monuments. It is the responsibility of leaders at all levels of government to understand and promote that elusive aspect of character.
The authentic practice of reverence includes other related virtues too. Knowledge of the particular traditions of at least a few of the many cultures in a pluralistic society is one of those. While nobody can be an expert on all the cultures’ sacred traditions, some level of demonstrated understanding by a leader of the etiquette around the dead remains a reasonable expectation.
If you get a chance to query a potential political leader about their character or serve on a small process group assigned to that task, here are some questions and comments to use to initiate that task responsibly. They will tend to be instructive of the candidate, and signal at least a bit of vibrant human reverence in that person as ready for top leadership.
What things are genuinely sacred to you, Ms. or Mr. Candidate?
Have you ever cried at a funeral or memorial service? Will you tell us why that person or event was so moving for you?
What is your history of religious belief and practice? How do you see assisting with cultivating awe in people as part of a leader’s responsibility?
What do you see as your role as a political leader regarding your constituents’ established traditions of ritual and celebration?
Will you share a memory of how, at some point in your life, you were deeply affected by a national ritual?
