This past weekend, my wife JoAnna was working in the yard, pulling out the weeds of her flower bed. I told myself I would have to spend some extra time this summer and remove the roots. Just as that thought came to my mind, I got distracted by the word root (yes, I can be easily distracted). How many ways do we use the word root? “Get to the root of the problem.” “The root word is…”  “You must find the square root to solve the math problem.” “We rooted out…” Then I thought there was a character in Guardian of the Galaxies named Root, but my son corrected me and said, “It’s Groot, not Root.” LOL. 

A few days later, as I was contemplating Psalm 1, it inspired me to reexamine the concept of the word “root” and its integration into our descriptions of the work we undertake at the Resurgence Leadership Foundation.

1 God blesses those people who refuse evil advice and won’t follow sinners or join in sneering at God. 2 Instead, they find happiness in the Teaching of the Lord, and they think about it day and night. 3 They are like trees growing beside a stream, trees that produce fruit in season and always have leaves. Those people succeed in everything they do. (Psalm 1:1-3, CEV)

The Psalmist was keenly aware that every person’s life produces something based upon who we listen to, who we follow (there was no social media yet), what groups we join, and where we find joy. In other words, there is a direct correlation between the production of our lives and what we are rooted in. We must be intentional about our ROOT WORK.

Our vision at Resurgence is to see our world become a just society where everyone and everything is treated with dignity, respect, and care. Our contribution to shaping this reality is to focus our efforts on the training and development of virtuous leaders, mentoring programs, and families. 

Yes, I intentionally used the word “virtuous.” Why virtuous/virtue? I am glad you asked.

Getting to the Root of ‘Virtue’

If you look up the term virtue in the dictionary, you might read that it is moral excellence, but what is it rooted in? At Resurgence, we define virtue as moral excellence rooted in Christ, expressed consistently everywhere. We understand virtue is cultivated by transforming one’s mind and refining one’s habits through continued practice within a community. 

The RLF team embraced the term virtue because it is understood by most people of faith and goodwill globally while embodying strong values. Yet we recognize that using the term without being clear about its roots would have been detrimental to future generations of leaders, programs, and families. Good-looking people and things connected to bad roots will eventually produce unhealthy fruit, keeping us from our vision.

As we prepare to celebrate Jesus’s death, burial, and resurrection, I am reminded of a passage that connects Psalm 1 with the root work.

24 Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. 25 Anyone who loves their life will lose it, while anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. (John 12:24-25, NIV)

The seed fell to the ground and died, but the roots grew and produced many seeds. Jesus, thank you for being the genesis of our virtuous ROOT WORK.