Comments on: YW Virtue Lessons

By: Angie

Angie — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 21:04:28 +0000

I really appreciated your article and think it would be a great idea to pass on to the yw. I currently work with the yw in our area and I know they would love learning about these role models. There are great opportunities to share these examples with the youth at weekly yw/wm acitvities and or the youth firesides. We’ll have to plan something.

By: Kinda O

Kinda O — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 01:31:31 +0000

Thank you for this post and all of Rebecca’s BCC posts on the subject, and those at Beginnings New and FMH. In thinking about other role models, I would like to check out the new book referenced on the sideblog, Mormon Women: Portraits and Conversations (or something like that).

By: Susan

Susan — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 23:44:28 +0000

Thanks, Kevin.

By: Kevin Barney

Kevin Barney — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 19:51:24 +0000

Here is the Rachel Esplin video:

http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles_of_faith/2009/03/mormon_tv_harva.html

By: Susan

Susan — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 19:32:29 +0000

At our New Beginnings a few weeks ago I used the article by Pres. Faust—The Virtues of Righteous Daughters of God which lists Faith, Honesty, Chastity, Humility, Self-Discipline, Fairness, Moderation, Cleanliness, Courage, and Grace as elements of Virtue. The girls were amazed because most of them thought virtue was just chastity. I have encouraged the advisors to include these elements in the supplemental material to their lessons.

This post is a great story about a young girl who shows courage and grace. Thanks for sharing.

I missed the post about Rachel Esplin. I’d like to show it to my YW if you could provide a link, please.

By: cinepro

cinepro — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 18:42:07 +0000

That’s a great story. Even though we might not agree with her specific implementation of “modesty” (although we may have 70 years ago), we can all understand the difficulty sometimes in publicly living our religion.

By: Natalie B.

Natalie B. — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 16:12:39 +0000

Wonderful post!

By: jeans

jeans — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 12:25:07 +0000

Love this post, Kevin, and I applaud both the use of a current example, and one from outside Mormonism. Yahoo! BN's previous discussions about the value (among YW leaders, a group to which we would be proud to include you) are here, here, and here. The initial buzz about the value is here, and here.

By: Kevin Barney

Kevin Barney — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 11:49:28 +0000

Zack, you may well be right. The article just said “first Muslim player,” and I figured there was no way that could be right, so I edited it down to what I presumed she meant and added “female” myself. But I have no idea whether even that is accurate. So I agree with you that that specific claim by the author of the article needs to be taken with a grain of salt.

By: Paradox

Paradox — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 08:01:41 +0000

There’s a quote from G.K. Chesterton from his essay A Piece of Chalk that captures pretty well what I think the intention of the new value is.

“Chastity does not mean abstention from sexual wrong; it means something flaming, like Joan of Arc.”

Doing what we’re told isn’t going to be enough anymore. Young Women need to be willing to make stronger stands about morality. As long as they’re unwilling, or ignorant about the nature of what’s at stake, they’re in a compromising position.

I’ve not been long out of the YW program, and I honestly wish that someone would have–JUST ONCE–sat us all down and told us how stupid it would be to hand over our bodies to young men who don’t know any better; or even worse, to those young men who did. I wish the lessons wouldn’t have spared our feelings or our comfort at all. With all do respect to personal agency and the efforts of the leaders I had, it simply wasn’t enough to coddle us through. While sexual purity isn’t what Virtue is entirely about, it’s definitely a large part of it–and based on my experience in YW, that’s extremely appropriate.

I’m proud to see Virtue in the program, and I hope the YW get more out of Personal Progress now than ever before.