Boethius, The Consolation 2.17

. . . “Think again of precious stones. Does their gleam attract your eyes? But any excellence they have is their own brilliance, and belongs not to men. Wherefore I am amazed that men so strongly admire them. What manner of thing can that be which has no mind to influence, which has no structure of parts, and yet can justly seem to a living, reasoning mind to be beautiful? Though they are works of their Creator, and by their own beauty and adornment have a certain low beauty, yet they are in rank lower than your own excellence, and have in no way deserved your admiration.

“Does the beauty of landscape delight you? Surely, for it is a beautiful part of a beautiful creation. And in like manner we rejoice at times in the appearance of a calm sea, and we admire the sky, the stars, the sun, and the moon.

“Does any one of these,” she said, “concern you? Dare you boast yourself of the splendid beauty of any one of such things? Are you yourself adorned by the flowers of spring? Is it your richness that swells the fruits of autumn? Why are you carried away by empty rejoicing? Why do you embrace as your own the good things that are outside yourself? Fortune will never make yours what Nature has made to belong to other things.

“The fruits of the earth should doubtless serve as nourishment for living beings, but if you would satisfy your need as fully as Nature needs, you need not the abundance of Fortune. Nature is content with very little, and if you seek to thrust upon her more than is enough, then what you cast in will become either unpleasing or even harmful.

“Again, you think that you appear beautiful in many kinds of clothing. But if their form is pleasant to the eyes, I would admire the nature of the material or the skill of the maker.

“Or are you made happy by a long line of attendants? Surely if they are vicious, they are but a burden to the house, and full of injury to their master himself. While if they are honest, how can the honesty of others be counted among your possessions?” . . .

—from Book 2, Prose 5

Money, we have seen, is in and of itself nothing at all. The acquisition is all for the sake of the spending, while the spending draws us away from ourselves, and into a dependence upon other things. It becomes about having this or that, and thinking that this or that is somehow to our credit. Yet things have their own beauty and value, according to what they are, and this is in no way a reflection on our beauty and value. Possessing them will not improve us.

We are drawn to holding and admiring rare gems and minerals, to owning vast amounts of land, to having an abundance of food and resources at our disposal, to wearing the finest clothes, to being catered to by followers, employees, and servants. How odd this truly is, because we are defining our humanity by everything except our own humanity.

If the objects we strive to possess lack reason, the dignity of what is superior has become subservient to what is inferior. A stone may be a fine stone, but it hardly better than a man, and it will never make the man himself any better. If the objects we strive to possess share in reason, as we do when we foolishly think we own other men, their merit reflects upon them, and not upon us.

The home I live in, or the second home I rarely live in but enjoy bragging about, the fine job I have, complete with the window corner office, the classy car I drive, the designer fare I drape myself in, or all the other people who run about at my bidding could indeed be quite fine. But they wouldn’t make me fine. They would make me a man obsessed with accessories and accoutrements.

I have long been deeply fond of symbolism and traditions, the way the shared use of one thing can represent another, how an outer sign can reflect an inner reality. A certain flag may stand for a community, the gift of a flower may stand for love, dancing may stand for celebration, wearing black may stand for mourning. But we find ourselves in trouble when we confuse the sign and the signified, flip the external with the internal, and place the value in things instead of in persons.

I have also long been saddened by how we have come to consider the symbol of the engagement ring. I have heard all sorts of explanations for how this arose, from the fashions of aristocrats to clever marketing by the jewelry industry, but we now all take it for granted that a proposal of marriage requires the giving of a diamond ring. And a part of this assumption is that the bigger, better, and more expensive the diamond and the setting are, the more valuable the love of the giver, and the worthiness of the recipient.

Cut color, clarity, and carat , the “Four C’s” will too easily replace what I started calling the “Real Four C’s”, character, charity, commitment, and compassion. I knew something was quite wrong when I was told I needed to spend at least three months salary on the ring, though that, of course, was simply the bare minimum. Here I immediately felt discouraged by the fact that the degree of my love for another person apparently depended on money. If I did it right, other women would look on with envy, and other men would be impressed by my status. If I did it wrong, my bride and I would be viewed with dismissal and pity.

I ended up proposing with an old family heirloom, and I recall only two or three other people who saw the beauty and significance in this. The rest were simply confused. We eventually began wearing simple and humble Claddagh rings. We understood quite well what they stood for, even if no one else did. The heart was love. The hands were friendship. The crown was loyalty.

Buying or wearing a big diamond is itself not the problem at all. The problem is when buying or wearing the diamond begins, consciously or not, to replace the presence of virtue, and when the cost or rarity of an object begins to eclipse the dignity and excellence of a human being. The problem arises in our estimation of what is truly worthy and good.

Written in 8/2015

IMAGE: That first ring will cost you many and many of thousands. You can get that second ring for under a hundred. Either could be an expression of love. What matters, in the end, the image, or the reality? Is love a commodity, or a commitment?