Empathy begins the process of connecting us with others, as we share their emotions. Our own life experience enables us to understand something of the life experience of others. That emotional understanding is the distinction we call empathy: “. . . the capacity to share the feelings of others . . .” “Empathy is a complex capability enabling individuals to…
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Value for Thursday of Week 39 in the season of Fulfillment
Keeping Fidelity; Being Loyal
Fidelity, in the context of Faith, is reliance over time. When our trust, confidence and reliance are rewarded consistently over time, we are unlikely to stray from the object of our Faith.
- Many persons have a wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness. It is not attained through self-gratification but through fidelity to a worthy purpose. [Helen Keller]
- Peace demands the most heroic labor and the most difficult sacrifice. It demands greater heroism than war. It demands greater fidelity to the truth and a much more perfect purity of conscience. [Thomas Merton]
Throughout evolutionary history, in-group loyalty has been treated as paramount. Perhaps that is why the religions have evolved from tribalism (a chosen people) to a more universal ethic.
Loyalty and fidelity have their place: when the relationship at issue is built on universal respect, or better, then in-group loyalty may not become problematic. here both partners have mutually agreed on important aspects of their marriage, loyalty and fidelity can be essential to the relationship, and ethically sound.
In the Human Faith model, our fidelity is to the principle of honoring everyone’s intrinsic worth. This is a self-checking principle that ensures that people who follow it will not become abusive toward others.
Real
True Narratives
Book narratives:
- Graham Stewart, Friendship and Betrayal: Ambition and the Limits of Loyalty (Orion Publishing, 2007).
- Laurence Cole and Daniel L. Unowsky, The Limits of Loyalty:Imperial Symbolism, Popular Allegiances, and State Patriotism in the Late Habsburg Monarchy (Berghahn Books, 2007).
- Catherine Clinton, Southern Families at War: Loyalty and Conflict in the Civil War South (Oxford University Press, 2000).
- Andrew Harker, Loyalty and Dissonance in Roman Egypt: The Case of the Acta Alexandrinorum (Cambridge University Press, 2008).
- Pat Conroy, The Death of Santini: The Story of a Father and His Son (Nan A. Talese/Doubleday, 2013): “. . . Conroy’s conviction pulls you fleetly through the book, as does the potency of his bond with his family, no matter their sins, their discord, their shortcomings.”
- David Knowles, Loyalty and Disloyalty: The History of Morality (Arena Books, Ltd., 2013).
- Andrew Lawler, A Perfect Frenzy: A Royal Governor, His Black Allies, and the Crisis That Spurred the American Revolution (Atlantic Monthly Press, 2025): “The author deftly dissects Dunmore’s choices in the midst of mounting revolutionary crises, revealing a man caught between competing loyalties and a rapidly shifting political landscape. . . . Lawler is especially good at casting a spotlight on the hypocrisy of the early insurrectionists as well as the double bind of Black Americans forced to navigate the treacheries of the Revolution.”
From the dark side:
- Saskia Hamilton, ed., The Dolphin Letters, 1970-1979: Elizabeth Hardwick, Robert Lowell, and Their Circle (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2019): “In 1970, the poet Robert Lowell took a teaching appointment at Oxford, leaving behind his wife, the critic Elizabeth Hardwick, and the couple’s 13-year-old daughter, Harriet. At a party that spring, he encountered the heiress and Anglo-Irish writer Caroline Blackwood. He moved into her house that night.”
Technical and Analytical Readings
- George P. Fletcher, Loyalty: An Essay on the Morality of Relationships (Oxford University Press, 1995).
- Simon Keller, The Limits of Loyalty (Cambridge University Press, 2007).
- Anna Stilz, Liberal Loyalty: Freedom, Obligation, and the State (Princeton University Press, 2009).
- Edgar Denton, III, ed., Limits of Loyalty (Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1980).
- Thich Nhat Hanh, Fidelity: How to Create a Loving Relationship That Lasts (Parallax Press, 2011).
- John Kleinig, On Loyalty and Loyalties: The Contours of a Problematic Virtue (Oxford University Press, 2014).
- Josiah Royce, The Philosophy of Loyalty (1908).
- Timothy Keningham & Lerzan Aksoy, Why Loyalty Matters: The Groundbreaking Approach to Rediscovering Happiness, Meaning and Lasting Fulfillment in Your Life and Work (BenBella Books, 2009).
- James Carville, Stickin’: The Case for Loyalty (Simon & Schuster, 2000).
- Ajit Rao, The Tao of Loyalty: Winning With Employees (SAGE Publications, 2006).
- Troy Jollimore, The Virtue of Loyalty (Oxford University Press, 2024).
- Frederick F. Reichheld, Loyalty Rules!: How Today’s Leaders Build Lasting Relationships (Harvard Business Review, 2003).
- Frederick F. Reichheld, The Loyalty Effect: The Hidden Force Behind Growth, Profits, and Lasting Value (Harvard Business Review, 1996).
Photographs
Documentary and Educational Films
Imaginary
Fictional Narratives
The trembling mother’s voice was full of unselfish love as she gave her last injunction. “Let not thine eyes be blinded, my son.” She said. “The mountain road is full of dangers. LOOK carefully and follow the path which holds the piles of twigs. They will guide you to the familiar path farther down.” The son’s surprised eyes looked back over the path, then at the poor old, shriveled hands all scratched and soiled by their work of love. His heart broke within and bowing to the ground, he cried aloud: “oh, Honorable mother, your kindness breaks my heart! I will not leave you. Together we will follow the path of twigs, and together we will die!” [folktale, “The Aged Mother”]
Novels:
- Alexandre Dumas (père), The Three Musketeers (1844-45): D’Artagnan fellows refuse a commission, leaving it instead for their friend.
- Allegra Goodman, The Cookbook Collector: A Novel (Random House, 2010): “We’re always told there are recipes for disaster and recipes for happiness, but where exactly those recipes are to be found is anyone’s guess.”
- L.K. Madigan, Flash Burnout: A Novel (Houghton Mifflin Books for Children, 2009), “shows the toll addiction and neglect can take not only on family members, but also on friends and others in the community around them. The book covers issues of sexual abstinence, safe sex, underage drinking, using alcohol to escape, honesty in relationships and more.”
- Sarah Dunant, In the Company of the Courtesan: A Novel (Random House, 2006): “. . . a book about a prostitute and a pimping, juggling dwarf.”
- Tessa Hadley, Late in the Day: A Novel (Harper/HarperCollins Publishers, 2019): “. . . it’s not just Zach who has held the four of them, and the two marriages, together; it’s the power structures they agreed to in their 20s, the vows they took when they were different people.”
- David Wright Faladé, Black Cloud Rising: A Novel (Atlantic Monthly Press, 2022): “What does Etheridge owe his father's family? The issue comes to a point when he confronts his white half brother, who is fighting with the Confederates, on the battlefield. What does he owe his country, and his race?”
From the dark side:
- Martin Michael Driessen, The Pelican: A Comedy (Amazon Crossing, 2019): “. . . the three characters at the center of Oyamada’s strangely chilling novella push their respective rocks up the hill at ‘the factory’ day in and day out . . .” This is a story of betrayal.
Poetry
Ye who believe in affection that hopes and endures, and is patient,
Ye who believe in the beauty and strength of woman's devotion,
List to the mournful tradition, still sung by the pines of the forest;
List to a Tale of Love in Acadie, home of the happy.
[Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie”]
Other poems:
- Alfred Noyes, “The Highwayman”
Music: Composers, artists, and major works
Fritz Busch was a conductor who was known for adhering to composers’ intentions. “In the opinion of Grove, Busch was 'the soundest type of German musician: not markedly original or spectacular, but thorough, strong-minded, decisive in intention and execution, with idealism and practical sense nicely balanced'. The Times called him 'a virile, faithful and extremely skilful interpreter of Mozart' and continued, 'His beat like his bearing was one of quiet authority; his interpretations were fully alive without fuss or idiosyncrasy but devoted wholly to the projection of the music as he conceived the composer to have intended it'.” Here is a brief video of his conducting and a link to his playlists.
Conductor Nikolaus Harnoncourt was known for “bringing the scholarship and sensibility of historical performance to the mainstream repertoire with sometimes controversial, but always illuminating results.” An advocate of “historically informed performance”, “. . . he researched, performed and recorded early music encyclopedically.” “His 1982 book Musik als Klangrede (Music as Speech) was the first to comprehensively describe the theory of historically informed performance practice. He emphasises again and again that when making music every idea must develop from original sources.” Here he is leading a masterclass, in rehearsal, and in performance. He left an extensive set of playlists.
Johannes Brahms’ three string quartets, Op. 51 and Op. 67, evidence a seriousness of purpose in the unwavering commitment of each voice to each other and to the whole.
- Quartet No. 1 in C minor, Op. 51, No. 1 (1873) (approx. 30’) (list of recorded performances)
- Quartet No. 2 in A minor, Op. 51, No. 2 (1873) (approx. 31-40’) (list of recorded performances)
- Quartet No. 3 in B-flat Major, Op. 67 (1875) (approx. 30-32’) (list of recorded performances)
Christoph Willibald Gluck, Orfeo ed Eurydice (1762, rev. 1774) (75-116’) (libretto) (list of recorded performances): Orfeo descends into hell to save his beloved, and places her happiness above his own welfare, passing the test of fidelity. Here is are links to the 1762 version on video featuring Liebau & Mehta (Luks), and top-rated audio-recorded performances featuring; Ragin, McNair & Seiden (Gardiner) in 1991; and Fink, Cangemi & Kiehr (Jacobs) in 2001. Here are links to performances of the 1774 version with video featuring Kozená & Bender (Gardiner) in 1999; Mehta & Liebau (Luks); and Molinari & Bevan (Dantone) in 2023. Other top audio-only recorded performances are by Simoneau, Danco & Alari (Rosbaud) in 1956; Croft, Delunsch & Harousseau (Minkowski) in 2002; and Davies, Bevan & Bottone (Bates) in 2019.
Other major works:
- Anaïs Mitchell, “Hadestown” (2019) (approx. 123’) is a contemporary version of the Orfeo and Eurydice story.
- Louise Farrenc, Piano Quintet No. 1 in A Minor, Op. 30 (1839) (approx. 28’) (list of recorded performances)
- Erich Korngold, Die Kathrin (1936) (approx. 162’): in this opera, Kathrin and François fall in love but circumstances and other people with nefarious motives obstruct and impede them at every turn. After five years apart, in hardship, they are reunited, and have a five-year-old child. The opera ends with the lovers in each other’s arms – and alive! Here is a performance conducted by Brabbins.
- Carl Czerny, Romantic Fantasy No. 1 on Sir Walter Scott's "Waverley", Op. 240 (1832) (approx. 20’) - a main theme is “loyalty to (the title character's) family and the principled people he meets”.
- Franz Joseph Haydn, La fedeltá premiata (Fidelity Rewarded) (1780) (approx. 202’): “Composed for the re-opening of the Esterhaza opera house in 1781, La fedelta premiata, a pastoral semi-buffa opera, concerns itself with the goddess Diana’s decree, due to some sort of previous sacrilege, that every two years a couple of faithful lovers be sacrificed to a sea monster until some heroic (duh) character offers his own life.”
- Christoph Willibald Gluck, Iphigénie en Aulide (1774) (approx. 112-133’) (synopsis) (list of recorded performances): “Based on Euripides via Racine, it tells of Agamemnon’s anguished choice between his daughter and his country, between family love and religion.”
From the dark side:
- Richard Wagner’s opera Die Walküre (1856) (approx. 237-243’) (libretto) (list of recorded performances) is the second in the composer’s epic Ring cycle. It is a story of disloyalty within a family. Here are links to live performances with video, conducted by Mehta, and Adam Fischer. Excellent audio-recorded performances are conducted by Keilberth in 1955, Solti in 1962, and Karajan in 1965.
Music: songs and other short pieces
- Kenny G, “Forever in Love”
- Frank Sinatra, “Always” (lyrics)
- The Beatles, “When I’m Sixty-Four” (lyrics)
- Alan Jackson, “Remember When” (lyrics)
- Nawang Khechog, “For as Long as Space Endures”
Visual Arts
- Wassily Kandinsky, Couple Riding (1906)
- Marc Chagall, Couple and Basket with Fruits
- William Hogarth, David Garrick and His Wife (1757)
- Anthony van Dyck, Portrait of a Married Couple (early 1600s)
- Francisco Goya, Loyalty (1616-23)
Film and Stage
- Toy Story 3: In the third of the Toy Story animated films series, the characters are loyal to each other even in parting.
- Hannah and Her Sisters, Woody Allen’s typically twisted exposition on fidelity and infidelity
- The Last Metro: “a gently comic, romantic meditation on love, loyalty, heroism and history”
- Goodfellas, on the ethical limits of loyalty
- Talk to Her (Hable con Ella), this film about a man and a comatose woman is “not about sympathy but about loyalty”; a “tragic comedy about need, its liberating and shackling powers”
- The Whales of August: about loyalty among sisters, though neither of them has entirely earned it
From the dark side:
- Missing, a story of betrayal by the U.S. government
- The Shop on Main Street, about a man on the edge of betrayal in Nazi Germany
- The Red Shoes: This adaptation of Anderson’s fairy tale, here repeated as real life, is a story about betrayal
- The Seven-Year Itch: exploring challenges to marital fidelity, with humor
- The Silence: indifference between sisters
- Le Trou (The Hole): five cellmates plan an escape , which fails when trust is betrayed.
