The opening words of a novel by Nick Hornby called How to be Good describing a very modern dilemma How are we to be good when it there is no agreement on what being good actually means? We can all, I hope, agree that it is good to be good. And that being good is not about being a goody-goody, judgmental or moralistic, but rather learning to live in such a way that allows us and others to flourish. But what do we have to do, be, to be good? When there are so many versions of the good life around. How do we know, in Nick Hornby's words, how to be good?

I want to suggest that learning how to be good is rather like learning to play the guitar.

There are several ways in which you might approach learning the guitar. You could get hold of a "teach yourself" book and learn to which note each string is tuned and how to strike the strings to get a sound. You could buy a book of guitar chords. You could find out that to make an E chord you need to depress these strings. In fact you could learn every chord in the book – that is you could say which strings must we held down at which fret positions but knowing these things does not make you a guitar player. Unless you can actually form those chords and play them in sequence and get a recognizable sound from the instrument you are not a guitar player. Or you might learn how to play one chord, you E chord, just like some people can play Chopsticks on the piano and nothing else. If someone were ask you to play, say, an A chord, you will be stuck because you only know how to form the one chord. Knowing the principles and conventions of guitar playing does not make you a guitar player.

Or you might say, "Well, I don't think I need to worry about all this practicing and fusty old rules. I want to do something new and creative and interesting, so I'll just pick up the guitar and see what happens and next week you can come to my first concert". I can remember thinking this when I was a child when watching someone play the piano. I thought, that doesn't look so hard. I'm sure I could get something out of that without having to learn any music. Of course, I did get something out of it - a completely dreadful and useless noise. Just randomly hitting keys or plucking the strings does not make you a piano or guitar player either.

So what do you need to do to learn the guitar? We will need to learn some rules and we will need to have a go. But key to learning any instrument is willingness to submit yourself to the daily discipline of the practice of guitar playing. To be a guitar player you need not only to know how an E chord is formed but to practice constantly forming it, making your fingers assume that shape on the fretboard, pressing down the right strings, until it becomes second nature. And to be a guitar player you can only practice meaningfully if you have some idea of what a guitar ought to sound like. And you know what a guitar ought to sound like because you have heard other people play it. You become part of a tradition of guitar playing, you practice what others have practiced, you learn to imitate others who are better at playing the guitar than you – they show you what a guitar player should be like. Even the most talented musician needs to be taught and to practice. No one makes it up from scratch, we all stand on the shoulders of giants.

Now living well is much the same. Being good is a practice - a commitment to making right choices day in and day out. Being good means practicing virtue not only in a crisis but in every conscious moment so that, when the crisis does come, virtuous action is second nature. This is why simply knowing the rules is not enough. Just being able to recite rules doesn't make you good. Even just keeping to the rules won't make you good either, partly because it is difficult to do but also because sometimes the rules simply don't always fit the very particular situations we face in the messy complexity of life. And sometimes we just don't have time to consult the rulebook – we just have to act. We don't have time to get out our book of chords and look up the strange or unexpected notes. If we have been making the right choices in small ways daily then, when crisis comes, acting for the good comes naturally.

But how do we know what choices to make? What is good? Well, just as you can't become a good guitarist without immersing yourself in the long tradition of guitar playing brought to you as you listen to other guitarists play and through the skill of an expert teacher, so we can't know what it means to be good without being part of a community and tradition that actively practices certain virtues in a disciplined and intentional way. Learning to be good is something we do with others. We can't and don't have to work it out for ourselves from scratch as though no one had ever pondered these matters before. Instead we submit ourselves to the wisdom of a tradition of considered reflection practiced in a community that seeks now to lead the good life.

For the Christian this is, of course, expressed through being part of the community of the church. Churches are to be schools of virtue, says St Paul,

Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers.

Matthew Parker