the theologian Tim Keller puts it, real freedom “is not so much the absence of restrictions as finding the right ones.” So much of our lives are determined by the definition of freedom we carry around unconsciously in our heads. On the second mountain it is your chains that set you free.
Our commitments build our moral character. When my older son was born, the delivery was difficult and he came out bruised and blue, with a low Apgar score. He was whisked away to intensive care. It was a harrowing time. In the middle of that first night, I recall thinking, If he should live for only thirty minutes, will it have been worth a lifetime of grief for his mother and me? Before having a kid, I might have thought, Of course not. How could thirty minutes of life for a being who is not even aware of itself be worth a lifetime of grief for two adults? Where’s the cost-benefit in that? But every parent will know that it makes perfect sense. After his birth, the logic is different. Instantly it became clear that the life of the child has infinite dignity. Of course it is worth the grief, even if the candle is only lit for such a short time. Once a kid is born you’ve been seized by a commitment, the strength of which you couldn’t even have imagined beforehand. It brings you to the doorstep of disciplined service.
When a parent falls in love with a child, the love arouses amazing energy levels; we lose sleep caring for the infant. The love impels us to make vows to the thing we love; parents vow to always be there for their kid. Fulfilling those vows requires us to perform specific self-sacrificial practices; we push the baby in a stroller when maybe we’d rather go out alone for a run. Over time those practices become habits, and those habits engrave a certain disposition; by the time the kid is three, the habit of putting the child’s needs first has become second nature to most parents.
Slowly, slowly, by steady dedication, you’ve transformed a central part of yourself into something a little more giving, more in harmony with others and more in harmony with what is good than it was before. Gradually the big loves overshadow the little ones: Why would I spend my weekends playing golf when I could spend my weekends playing ball with my children? In my experience, people repress bad desires only when they are able to turn their attention to a better desire. When you’re deep in a commitment, the distinction between altruism and selfishness begins to fade away. When you serve your child it feels like you are serving a piece of yourself. That disposition to do good is what having good character is all about.
In this way, moral formation is not individual; it is relational. Character is not something you build sitting in a room thinking about the difference between right and wrong and about your own willpower. Character emerges from our commitments. If you want to inculcate character in someone else, teach them how to form commitments—temporary ones in childhood, provisional ones in youth, permanent ones in adulthood. Commitments are the school for moral formation.
When your life is defined by fervent commitments, you are on the second mountain.
EIGHT
The Second Mountain
Kathy Fletcher and David Simpson have a son named Santi who went to public school in Washington, D.C. Santi had a friend named James who sometimes went to bed hungry, so Santi invited him to occasionally sleep over at his house. James had a friend and that kid had a friend and so on. Now if you go to Kathy and David’s house on any given Thursday night there will be about twenty-six kids sitting around the dinner table. There are generally four or five living with Kathy and David or with other families nearby. Every summer Kathy and David round up a caravan and take about forty kids out of the city for a vacation on Cape Cod. Simply by responding to the needs around them, Kathy and David are now at the center of a sprawling extended family.
I started going to dinner at Kathy and David’s house sometime early in 2014, invited by a mutual friend. I walked in the door and was greeted by a tall, charismatic man named Edd, who had dreadlocks dripping over soulful eyes. I held out my hand to shake his and Edd said, “We