We live in a time of huge change. Our profession of arms community has been hit particularly hard with many personnel in key places of leadership being found publicly to have acted wrongly. How did we get here?
I have heard it said that we are “experiencing a crisis of character”. I agree 100% that character is central to the issue, but I have trouble seeing it as a crisis exactly. Character is formed over the long-term. We are born, essentially, as a blank-character-slate, and throughout our lives, experiences, relationships, hurts, victories, losses, loves, our character is formed. In terms of the length of a person’s life, a parallel to character formation in the created world would be an ice age, or continental drift. When we talk about a crisis of character we should be thinking of a glacier receding rather than a hurricane. Less sudden, but no less important!
The noteworthy thing is not that someone was lacking character, but rather that so many are lacking. If the receding of one glacier is significant, the receding of so many glaciers is on a climate-change level. What is missing or what’s been added to our wider environment that is causing this slow and persistent change? Over whole lives and careers?
Similar to climate-change, there are influential things you can do to be a part of the solution. And arguably, you will more directly see the positive results when you work to reverse the decline of character.It all starts with you, and me, at the personal level of choice.
Children have little control over their environment, and so their character development is largely up to their responsible adults. Once we reach adulthood, we can no longer hide behind the legacy of others. We must choose for ourselves the character that we want formed in us. We need to evaluate what we’ve been given – what to keep, what to reframe, what to let go? We need to determine areas we might be lacking and pursue the building up of our character.
We can choose to adopt certain attitudes that will help us along this path: humility, teachability, and generosity. To acknowledge that we haven’t arrived yet. To receive the good that others have to offer. And to offer to others also what we are learning along the way. Let’s change this climate together!
By: Lt(N) Shiya Janzen, Chaplain Course Director
Canadian Forces Chaplain School and Centre, CFB Borden
