Live Prudently

Last updated on: December 7, 2016 at 10:28 am by Marilyn McEntyre

Live Prudently 2016-12-07T10:28:43-07:00 Marilyn McEntyre

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Now here’s an unpopular word. Sounds a little like prune or prude. Puritans used to name their daughters Prudence. It’s not hard to imagine what middle- schoolers now would do to those hapless girls. But I learned to appreciate the social, musical, and emotional complexity of Puritan culture from a lively and wonderful professor who enabled us to imagine a people who might actually find something lovely and life-giving in the virtue of prudence.

The word prudence comes from the Latin providencia, which meant foresight or the wisdom to see ahead and act with informed discretion. We get our word providence from that—provision and care that comes from wise oversight. One dictionary explains that prudence is the “wisdom to see what is suitable or profitable”–practical wisdom about how to live well in the world and justly (consider the term jurisprudence).

Elinor Dashwood, the character from Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility memorably played by Emma Thompson in the 1995 film version, embodies prudence and offers good reason to reflect on this undersung virtue. (I urge both the book and the film upon you, dear reader, in that order.) Compared to her more romantic, more expressive, more appealing, but sadly less prudent, sister Marianne, Elinor seems a bit pale at first—understated, a little too reasonable, a little less fun. Yet she has her passions, surprising, subtle humor and wit, appetite for life and pleasure in what is truly beautiful. She emerges as a woman comparable to Shakespeare’s similarly prudent Portia in whom intellect and largeness of heart combine to give us a vivid image of grace.

I especially like the way the literal meaning of the Latin root–foresight–links prudence to a wider perspective, a capacity to see what is unfolding and imagine the implications of the choices one faces. Foresight suggests a habit of mind that connects the dots—a capacity to imagine how one thing might lead to another, where plot complications might arise, what circumstances might prove to be mitigating. It lies at the heart of what some have called “moral intelligence.”

To live prudently would be to ask the “how” and “what if” and “wherefore” questions that give us pause. It would be to forego the momentary pleasure of leaping to comfortable conclusions or giving way to a wild impulse. It does not come easily to the impatient. But to slow is not to stop. The slowing of a prudent mind allows time to take in the complexity of available choices, of others’ needs or one’s own, of the historical moment, the political quandary, the professional tradeoffs, and to give those complexities due consideration.

I don’t think, though, that prudence altogether forecloses the joy of those “wild and precious” moments when we are called to act on a flash of intuition or a sudden summoning of the Spirit. The discernment it takes to know those moments when they come may be exactly where the wisdom of a prudent mind is most rewarding: to release oneself onto the wave, the ski slope, the wind current or the wide, smooth ice, trusting the body and the elements is a joy that comes most fully to those who, prudently, have trained and taken instruction and so prepared themselves for the fullness of delight.

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