When I was getting ready to start this year-long virtue series months ago, I asked friends and acquaintances to nominate others (whether famous or not) as suggestions for these brief profiles. Of the responses I received, one made immediate and complete sense. When I think of virtuous women I have known, she stands tall among them in my memory.

But most of what I recall of her is based on memories from before the second grade. Could I recall enough to write fully about her? And could I recall her accurately enough to offer a fair picture to my readers?

To confirm my own impressions (or add to them or correct as needed), I reached out to the source of the nomination, a most beautiful and beloved woman I affectionately call Tutu (the Hawaiian term for grandmother). About a month ago, Tutu finally wrote to share her further thoughts with me, and the timing could not have been more perfect. For I was just starting this month’s new theme. And Tutu’s very insightful notes helped me not only see how accurate my young memory had been, but also some other aspects of the nominated lady I was too young to understand and then later recall fully.

Please allow me today, then, to introduce you to an angel in skin named Ethel Harris. In that tightknit farming community, she was rightfully respected by all and affectionately called “Aunt Ethel” by a number of folks, whether they were related to her or not.

She was the first Sunday School teacher I ever had, during my toddler-preschool years, a time when I needed a very special love she gave as naturally as the air she breathed. She was something like a female Fred Rogers, and she treated each of us tiny souls with all the respect, attention, and grace she felt should be afforded to any human being. But as children are so often overlooked, dismissed, or misunderstood by adults, Ethel took it upon herself to give us extra attention and care. And it wasn’t buttery or pretentious. She spoke with us in a way we could understand, but still with sincerity, respect, and great intelligence. She felt called at every turn to model the teaching of Jesus that the littlest children should know His love and never be harmed or led astray from knowing His heart. When I was with her, every single moment as a child and also when I visited her again years later, before her passing, I felt loved about as unconditionally as I have ever felt loved by another person.

These are the things I reflected on in my own experience. But then I received Tutu’s letter.

While Tutu did confirm those things I remembered, she expounded further on Aunt Ethel’s deep and genuine humility, her fervent prayer practices for others, and her tireless generosity. And while she especially loved and prayed for the children, she had a heart of love for everyone. In Tutu’s notes, for example, I learned for the first time that Ethel also spent countless hours writing letters to prisoners to let them know they too were loved and never forgotten.

What strikes me most as I review the life of this one dear woman today? I think it is that sincerity is simply and truly seen when an authentic and loving person will choose to turn face-first to the world and shine a light from their deepest heart on others. A light that only God can put there. And a light that shines purest in the absence of fear.

I know Aunt Ethel prayed for me. I am one of so many in her still-living legacy. I could not be more sincerely honored to think about this. And I so sincerely want to live the rest of my life following her example.

Sometimes a person is naturally sincere, so that what they do and who they are spring up, like two intertwined vines from the same root, out of their core being. There is no pretense.

And sometimes a person possesses all of the potential they need to learn how to live genuinely and care genuinely for others, but their aim, passion, or outlook remains unrefined, misguided.

This month, we will look at a couple examples of each. This week, we will start with the latter.

He was a young fisherman and a younger brother who had a local reputation for his quick temper. Perhaps we can excuse at least a part of his impetuous attitude and selfishness with stereotypical thoughts of male egotism and youthful naivete.

That is a snapshot of who he was.

But then, he started hanging out with another guy, a teacher who was teaching a new way of thinking in a new style. And hanging out with that teacher for several years began an amazing transformation in the young fisherman.

He would walk and talk with the teacher, and serve alongside him. He would witness wonders and be humbled nearly beyond bearing. He would be present during several of the most iconic moments of human history. And he would be the one given charge to care for the teacher’s mother when the teacher first passed away and then later flew away into Heaven.

His name was John, son of Zebedee. And his was a life beautifully transformed.

While I certainly believe that the love and truth of Jesus had the greatest effect on him overall, and I wholeheartedly believe that Mary was only a common person with no divine power of her own, I can’t help but wonder how much of John’s sincerity was shaped by Jesus himself and how much of it was influenced or enhanced by John’s time of caring for Mary. Certainly the combination of the two fed a spring of goodness already somewhere present in John’s heart. And it led him to become a channel through which so much of God’s goodness would be expounded to us.

How many people have come to know the love of Jesus personally though John’s carefully and sublimely written gospel? How many people have come to understand a deeper meaning of love through John’s epistles? How many people have read with wonder of the power of God’s love as described in John’s revelation?

Before becoming the only apostle to die at a natural old age, he endured a time of prisoner’s exile. And though St. Paul has often received much more attention for the breadth and depth of his writings and his work, today I celebrate the life and the quiet, faithful sincerity of John.

The art posted with these thoughts is a royalty-free image I found online. When I see it, I think of John and smile. Love lifted him up above himself to see a wider view and to bless so many. And love was what he lifted up to Heaven and out to the world as an offering in return.

And that, my friends, is a most true and sweet essence of sincerity.

So many of us cry out for justice to truly be blind and for social equality and goodness to prevail.

But where does it start?

It starts in each heart, with each one who would practice the second greatest commandment: to love neighbor with the same care one would show one’s self.

Today, instead of profiling one specific person, I simply want to let Ms. Keller’s beautiful words stir our souls. And I want to quietly commend everyone who chooses to do what is good and right for another person, no matter if their just or good acts will ever be widely know.

Let us press on to love and to uphold the welfare of each other.

We so often think of negative consequences or fateful punishment when we hear the word justice. Yet, there is really a neutral feeling to the word and a positive side we can easily overlook.

As definitions in Webster’s Dictionary point out, the doling out of justice may include bestowing merited rewards and showing equal, impartial, and fair treatment to another — no matter who they are. Combining those two meanings, we might also observe that a just person is a person who generously bestows blessings on others all around them, in fair measure and regardless of who those other people may be.

In that regard, justice cannot be administered by someone who is selfish. Indeed, if the vices of greed and self-centeredness grip the mind and heart of the person at hand, he or she will never be able to administer true justice. And so, selfishness can stand as an antonym and a barricade to the presence of justice in a person’s life.

And not just the life of a rich, famous, or powerful person. But also in the lives of common people like you and me. However, since most of the historical records still available to us detail the lives of the rich or the powerful, let us the consider the example of one man who was both, in his time, so that we might consider if his example is worth following.

Though history has preserved it, relatively few people know his name or his story apart from a now somewhat-less-popular Christmas song which combines a 13th century melody with lyrics penned in the 1850s. And his name is something of a tongue twister for England speakers outside of Eastern Europe.

His name was Wenceslas, and he ruled Bohemia (the modern day Czech Republic) as a Duke from the age of 18 until his life was (unjustly) cut short several years later. Only posthumously was he given the title King of Bohemia, the title by which we may have heard his name in the song.

It is a happy, lively tune, telling the tale of a ruler who stopped at nothing to provide for his people, going to personally attend to their needs and show them kindness, no matter how lowly their circumstances might be. In fact, besides the note that he banished his own mother, the former queen regent, soon after he began to rule, we don’t see much sign of him administering justice in a negative sense. It seems he spent the vast majority of his time bestowing goodness and righting wrongs wherever he could.

When Wenceslas began to rule, other leaders in the country insisted that half of the kingdom be given to his younger brother, Boleslaus. This was only fair, after all, and would likely help maintain peace in the land. Interestingly, Boleslaus was not prone to pure justice and was much greedier at his core. Where Wenceslas thrived in his generosity, Boleslaus brewed in his self-centeredness and longed for years to rule it all.

Finally, one September day, Boleslaus carried out a plot with three conspiring noblemen. First, the noblemen all stabbed his brother, and then Boleslaus finished Wenceslas off with a lance — right in the doorway of a church.

There are several ironies in the story. The ending of Wenceslas’ life was gruesome and heartbreaking, yet the tune which commemorates it is so sweet and cheerful. He had the status of a king, but he spent his years giving away his worldly goods, time, and energy to touch the lives of those he ruled. He could have treated some people better than others, but he seems to have had equal care and kindness for every single needy person. And even though his brother wanted only to destroy him, Wenceslas would live on forever in the memories of those who love what is good, in the Spirit of the One he worshipped.

This is justice in us: when we are filled less with ourselves and more with that Spirit, so that we want to bless others in equal measure and our deeds long reep the rewards, even after our earthly life has ended.

To quote the final refrain of the song, “Therefore, Christian men be sure, wealth or rank possessing, ye who now will bless the poor shall yourselves find blessing.” This, too, is justice. Perhaps the sweetest justice of all.

Abducted as a minor, he was carried to a foreign place and enslaved to labor against his will for years. When he found a miraculous way back home, he seized the opportunity and was reunited with his beloved family.

I think now of how he might have fared afterward according to my own culture’s standards.

Many people would have, at the very least, harbored awful feelings towards the people group from that foreign place, despising anyone of their ethnicity and every expression of their culture.

Most people would have just wanted to stay home with their family.

Some people would have become hypervigilant about every possible person who could pose a threat to them or their family at any future point.

And a few people would have raised an army to go back and fight the original captors, demanding retribution for all the damage those people had done.

This young man could have understandably declared his hatred for that people. But he chose instead to return to them with love and communicate that love to them through their very own culture.

He certainly had the chance to stay with his family. But he gave it up, leaving his home behind for the remainder of his life.

He could have lived out his days in fear and paranoia. But he chose instead to walk in paths of faith and trust, exuding a calm and strength that only comes in a life when love has smothered fear.

And, if the records are true and he really came from a noble family, he likely would have been able to raise an army to take across the sea so that he might exact justice on human terms. But he did not, choosing instead to let the Spirit ruling over him do the conquering of hearts and minds.

Last week, we noted how Jael dealt a literal blow of justice upon a threatening enemy. And such violent acts are often what we think of when we consider the word “justice.” Death by some form of bloodiness at its most extreme, sentencing by a judge or other authority at a lesser extreme.

We don’t think of dedicating the rest of one’s life to loving the very people who tried to destroy us as justice. Mercy or grace perhaps. Superhuman ethical perspective perhaps. Taking leave of one’s senses perhaps. But not justice.

But what if, in a different line of thinking, the life of Patrick shows us justice lived out in another way?

What if his ability to love his former enemies and even embrace them as his new, own people was built on a foundation of trusting that God knew what justice was yet needing to be done and that God would do it?

Does it take more courage to violently administer justice or to wait and give one’s enemies the chance to turn and seek forgiveness?

When I look at Patrick’s life, I think of another saint’s admonition, written a few hundred years previously: “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good” (Romans 12:21). Indeed, in his calling and his obedience, just as in the life of the Lord he followed, Patrick showed us a different way of honoring justice and ushering in rightness.