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I have a soul of lead // So stakes me to the ground I cannot move.

William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet

I’d like to relay a bit of irony right off the bat. Every article written for this site – every single one of them – I wrote the day of publication. And every one of those, bar the last, was on a Saturday or Sunday. It was never anything I’d call a routine, but it was just the way things were. Write, format, publish. I’m writing today’s article on a Thursday and while I don’t intend to do anything in the form of editing, I won’t be publishing it until Saturday.

Why’s that ironic, you ask? Well, because of all the writing requiring my attention, this is absolutely the least pressing. And it’s the article on Acedia, often referred to as Sloth.

The two are not interchangeable, however, and there’s a reason I went with Acedia over Sloth. Sloth paints an image we all understand, the lazy man lounging on the couch, bowl of chips on his stomach, watching the game. It’s a general laziness, and to that end it’s fairly easy to identify in ourselves. That said, it can be easy to misattribute Sloth, particularly in the always-grinding mindset a good portion of our culture finds itself in. The hyper-productive look at the people around them and assume a kind of gross lethargy has swept over the world. People are made to feel guilty for taking vacations or relaxing. Sloth becomes a label we tack on people who do less than what we do, because we’re at the “right” level of productivity.

So, rather than feeing into that, we turn to Acedia. Now, there are a few definitions for this, but they all circle around one defining characteristic of the word. Acedia is the failure to do as one should. Where Sloth can condemn us for taking time off, spending time with our families and letting more material concerns fade for a time wouldn’t fall into Acedia at all. Ignoring one’s family to take care of less important matters would, even if those matters aren’t necessarily slothful. Take, for instance, preemptively writing an article on the fourth Deadly Sin.

Acedia is also a more controversial subject to cover, particularly in today’s world. The very concept of what one “should” be doing is a hot topic. “Should” has a weight that we, as a society, do our best to avoid. We concern ourselves with what we “want” to do, conflating want with value, as though the most important matter at any one time is our own pleasure. A Marquis mindset. My opinion on that matter ought to be clear by now, but I do find his ideals have spread to a dangerous level. There is a growing worship of self – an elevation of the Queen of all Sin – that ignites Acedia in us.

It isn’t hard to see, either. Another bit of irony is how easily we can pinpoint Acedia in areas where we find injustice. The richest in our society are deemed vile for not using their wealth to help others. The poor are castigated for succumbing to drugs and broken homes. We attack companies for failing to protect the environment and governments for doing the same with their people. For failing to do what as they should.

Combating Acedia requires Diligence. Unlike the three sins I covered prior, the need to understand what one should do makes this virtue a particular challenge. In some cases, it can be easy enough – while at work, I should be working, so diligence demands I do all I can to keep on task and perform as best I can. But what about when I’m home? These kids are only going to be around so long, should I spend every moment I have with them? Should my pursuit of becoming a traditionally published author take time away from my family? Should I settle in and watch a movie with the missus and take care of some things around the house?

In a religious context, I suppose there are some very clear guidelines as to what I should be doing. For the most part, I do try to be diligent in those things, but I have a long way to go. There’s diligence in understanding that, as well, and working toward it. But, beyond religion, it becomes much more of a crapshoot. I will say that there’s no possible way I’m keeping up my end of the bargain. I spend too much time on myself, and over the years it’s made me more of an introvert than I used to be. I suppose, then, that Diligence demands I get the family together and see what I can do to make things right. They’ll know better than I what I should be doing – after all, an ordered and virtuous life demands I do what’s right by the people whom I love and rely on me.

So, while this might be a bit shorter of a post (maybe, I’m not going to check), I think that’s enough time for one weeknight. I’m off to help reorganize my daughter’s room and spend some time with the people who matter most.

My challenge to you, my friends, is to consider your “should” and, once you have an idea of it, work to order your life in that direction. It will take time and effort – Diligence, if you will – but in the end, it will be worth it. Let me know how that goes.

Are these things really better than the things I already have? Or am I just trained to be dissatisfied with what I have now?

Chuck Palahniuk, Lullaby

Welcome back, my friends, to the land of remedial introspection. At this point we’ve covered Gluttony and Avarice, two of the three Deadly Sins that I’ve come to consider siblings. That leads us to the third: Lust.

Now, you may be wondering why it is I treat these three as kin. I do so because, at their cores, they share a similar trouble. They are each disordered affections of want. Gluttony wants to only to consume, thinking nothing of value. Avarice seeks what it does not have in an effort to hoard, caring only for its value to oneself. Lust is the amalgamation of these – the desire for things it does not have, with the aim to use them up and move on. To that end, Lust does not tie itself to the strict bounds of sexuality like we tend to believe.

I’ve mentioned this before, but I think it’s good to repeat: attempting to pigeonhole the Deadly Sins to their stereotypes – Gluttony to food, Avarcie to wealth, and Lust to sex – allows us the ease of pretending we don’t suffer from these disorders. To think we’re better than other people who do. Another sin for another time.

It’s easy to see why that pigeonhole exists. Sex is the most obvious avatar of Lust’s particular desires. We see it in ourselves as easily as we see it in society; that deep, physical want that can stem out of nowhere. It’s powerful, unavoidable, and, perhaps hardest of all, natural. I suppose that last bit is true for all the Deadly Sins, and our persistent fight against them through discipline and wanting to overcome human nature is what makes a virtue a virtue.

As far as the how Lust pervades the world, well… I almost feel like this post is redundant. You live in the same world I do, and it’s almost impossible not to see it. “Sex sells” isn’t a slogan for nothing. We are tailored from an early age to lust for things, to treat others as disposable ends for our own benefit, to always be on the hunt for the next best thing and casting it aside as soon as the next one reveals itself. It’s safe to say we had a good decade or more geared toward lust for the next phone release. Always chasing that dopamine hit of the Next Best Thing.

Even the opposed Virtue is traditionally geared toward sex – Chastity. I know a lot of people see that word and roll their eyes. They see a high schooler with a promise ring or a moral scold, they envision a hypocrite and want desperately to see them pulled down off their high horse. It’s interesting to me that, while I mentioned last week that Avarice is one of the few sins our society has seemed to realize is a problem, Chastity is one of the Virtues that it seems to actively loathe. There could be a lot of reasons for this, and I don’t claim to be an expert, but I tend toward one of these two: either what I said above is good enough, people just hate hypocrites and Chastity is one of those things where it’s easier to prove, or two; our society is so steeped in Lust that people who truly practice Chastity stand out as freaks that actively stand apart. Could be a little bit of column A and column B, too.

Anyway, like the sins, the virtues aren’t specified toward one act. But what is Chastity without sex? It’s refraining from the hunt. It’s not being distracted by the grass on the other side of the fence or giving into temptation of the hunt.

Like every virtue, this isn’t cut and dry. This doesn’t mean you should never change, never pursue, never want. It’s understanding that all decisions must come with an eye toward the life you should be living. It is cutting the distractions so that the noise doesn’t affect those decisions.

For my own part, there were certainly points in my life where I was always after the next thing, but they were short lived and rather bland. I’ll admit I did find this article harder to put together simply because I have less of a problem with this than other things, though it isn’t because I’m steeped in any sort of virtue. I’m just cheap. Not exactly a shining beacon of excellence there, but I guess I’ll take the win where I can get it.

And so ends the first block. With the siblings out of the way, I’ll be moving on in order of my own interpretations of importance. Have a fantastic week, everyone, and be good to one another. Give contentedness a shot.

I want the world // I want the whole world // Don’t care how // I want it now

Veruca Salt, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory

Greetings friends, and welcome to week two of my wonderfully uplifting delve into sin’s grip on the world and what we can do in our own lives to break the cycle. Last week I covered Gluttony. This week I’ll delve into one of its close relatives: Avarice, more commonly referred to as Greed.

When I first decided on the idea of covering the sins as for a series, I realized pretty quickly these first three would give me the biggest trouble. On a surface level, they’re all quite similar. Gluttony, Avarice, and Lust are, at their core, sins of want. Yes, I could focus on the surface-level interpretations and have spent all of last week covering food and all of next week talking about sex, but those are symptoms of deeper disorders. With Gluttony, that was a focus on consumption with no pleasure or appreciation. For Avarice, we find a need to obtain things we do not have and hold them forever.

Greed is one of those ideas that comes with its own stock image unique to everyone. The robber baron in his top hat and cane, lording over child laborers. Ebeneezer Scrooge in the dark mansion he inherited from his business partner, a single candle lighting his path. Scrooge McDuck, diving into his piles of gold. Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos, using near-limitless wealth to wrest control of entire institutions. Smaug and his mountain of treasure.

These things are colored through a Western lense, no doubt, but they speak of a similar thoughts. Avarice is at its core, the need to hoard value. It seeks to find value in anything and never let it go. Where Gluttony would consume without relishing what it had, Avarice relishes without consuming. This naturally leads us to think of the billionaire capitalist, but we needn’t go so far. Avarice does not require wealth. Watch an episode of Hoarders. It’s repulsive to most of us, but it’s a prime example. The people in that show have truly disordered love toward things. Things which remind them of better times, things which might some day be of value, things which they consider to have value simply because they exist.

Interestingly, of all the sins, Greed remains one of the few that we in the West manage to decry in the political and moral spheres. The wealth held by certain citizens is seen as a moral failing of our time. Capitalism itself is attacked as repugnant for being a tool used by the rich against the poor. I’ve got some words on that, but this isn’t the article – suffice it to say any economic system is nothing more than a tool; the morality of that tool lies solely in the hand of the people wielding it. Anyway, there was a time I found it frustrating that this, of all the sins, was such a focus, but to be honest I’m glad any of them remain. It shows that there’s still some ground to gain footing.

And how do we, as individuals, deal with our greed?

With Charity. Charity is the antithesis of Greed, but we must be careful not to think of it as just giving. The virtue of Charity is meant to encompass a limitless loving kindness toward all. It is generosity, yes, but taken to its heights. Charity requires sacrifice – if we give only what we feel no desire to hold onto, we’re not combating Avarice at all. We’re allowing ourselves to hoard what we truly value and attempting to placate our conscience by giving away what we don’t value. It’s a show, a trick, and ultimately a sign of the greatest sin of all. More of that to come on week seven.

You know, it’s ironic. When I started this I thought that, of all the sins, Avarice was one I had managed to more readily avoid. I don’t consider myself a greedy person. I try to live a somewhat minimalist life. I try not to buy things I don’t need, I rid myself of thing I no longer use that just take up space. But, as I’ve been writing this, I realize I’ve been kidding myself. There are absolutely things I hoard. Two of the most important things I have, in fact. I hoard my money and my time. I’ve always considered myself stingy but never equated that with Avarice. After all, it’s not like I’m rich. I have a family to pay for, things they need. But there are always people more in need than us, and what do I afford them? Nothing, really. I could give time to help others as well, but I don’t. I spend it here, shut away, writing about how I should be doing something else. Something charitable. Like I said, ironic.

I suppose there’s a reason people rarely live up to the virtues. Turns out they’re hard, and human nature is a difficult thing to break. And to that, I’ll be honest – I’m not sure what I’ll do. Last week was a much easier bit of introspection. I had a clear case of what I spent (still spend) too much time consuming and tangible steps to progress. I’ve made the first of many small steps in that regard. But Charity? Well, that’s a tougher pill to swallow. I suppose I know what I can do – what I should do – but I’m afraid to do it. That’s actually the right word. Afraid. I know it’s the right one because I didn’t want to put it out there. It pulls at that thread which leads to the greatest sin, makes me want to hide it from view, but the least I can do is expose it.

So, yes, I’ll say it again. I’m afraid to be more charitable. Afraid that I won’t be able to keep the life my family has grown accustomed to. Afraid that I’ll no longer have the time to pursue my own ambitions. Afraid that those things I’ve been hoarding will vanish and turn out to have been necessary after all. But what use is all of it if I’m neglecting to live a life according to the new covenant set forth by Christ? If I am meant to love others as He loved me, the only option is Charity.

Maybe it’s time I dusted off those Diaconate plans I’ve been avoiding.

With that surprisingly introspective moment out of the way, I hope you’ll all join me next week when I cover the aptly termed love child of Avarice and Gluttony, Lust. Have a wonderful week in the interim, and please, consider what it is that you hoard in your own life. Remember that there’s only one person you can directly change, and that’s yourself. Don’t let the darkness in the world keep you down. Find your path forward and take it. God bless, everyone.

Don’t ask questions, just consume product and then get excited for next product!

Jay, Red Letter Media

Well, here we are. After spending entirely too long choosing a title (One I’m still not overjoyed with, but deadlines are deadlines) and the order in which I’d be covering the subjects, the day is upon me. But before I jump in, I do first want to touch on the title itself.

I’ve considered using this verse from Judges 21:25 for quite some time, the full verse being: “In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes.” The context for this being, of course, the Isrealites and their gradual spiral further and further from the dictates of God during the time of the Judges prior to the coronation of the first king, Saul. Spoiler alert: that doesn’t solve the problem. It does, however, set the stage for Christ’s arrival by showing the people’s need for that very human yet spiritual guidance. Back to the point, it also showed what became of people when they didn’t have that involvement, and lives of sin they drifted toward. Something I think we can all relate to at this point.

The Deadly Sins are, in short, generalizations of the behaviors that lead us to live flawed lives. Dante Alighieri defined these sins as corrupt visions of love, and I find that to be an excellent summation. In each of the Deadly Sins, we can find a mote of truth and beauty that has been poorly directed.

Now, with that table set and me having just settled in from a likely-too-large lunch, let’s kick this off with our first sin – gluttony.

These first three articles are going to have very similar threads. Gluttony, Lust, and Greed have the same focus – they want more. More food, more pleasure, more, well, more. But, if I was to cover each, I didn’t want to focus on the obvious nature of each sin. I wanted the generalizations to help see how they have shaped and continue to shape our lives in order to help combat them. What, then, is the generalization of Gluttony?

Gluttony is an overwhelming focus on consumption. It doesn’t care the quality of what it consumes or the outcome of that consumption, it simply wants more. More food, more entertainment, more satisfaction. It doesn’t seek to hoard or boast, only to devour.

In an obvious way, we can see the effect of Gluttony in the West. We live disposable ways of life. It has been reported Americans throw out on average six hundred and forty dollars worth of food a year, more than any other nation on the planet. We’ve gravitated toward individually packaged everything, leading to ever increasing waste. Every year, we replace one perfectly functional phone for the next, just to have the latest and greatest. We live in a twenty-four-seven news cycle, in an age of global visibility that allows us to suck down content to fuel whatever feeling we wish to feel. It seems, at times, that we must live in a post-scarcity world where anything and everything can show up at our doorstep in a day or less with the click of a button.

And to what end? If we listen to the worries of the left, this hyper-consumerism is leading to a dying planet, overtaxed and overburdened. If we listen to the worries of the right, it has become its own Ouroboros, a perpetual cycle of hedonism that further perverts the desired nature of man. And while we argue back and forth over causes and outcomes and policies, we continue to pass over the fact that we agree, at least in part, on the nature of the problem. Overconsumption is a problem.

So, what do we do about it? Well, to continue to be a broken record on this, the only person you can truly change is yourself. We have to look at our own lives and expose them to fresh air and sunlight. The first step is knowing our own needs to improve and building upon them.

Myself, for instance. I used to be much worse when it came to the more obvious nature of Gluttony – I’d put on a lot of weight and I was, for lack of a better term, the trash can of the family. Anything anyone else wasn’t planning to eat, that was mine. No waste over here, which made me more virtuous in whatever bent ideology I’d invented. I’m past that, though, and while I still can go a little overboard at times, I consider myself better in that regard. No, the problem I have content. I spend an inordinate amount of time listening to politics. Consuming the state of the world through the lense of ideology. This may be worse than physical gluttony. Rather than becoming unhealthy and lax, I become jaded and distrusting. People’s actions take on new lights that they otherwise would not. I start to believe I know people without having ever met or spoken with them. I take away their benefit of the doubt and cast them to roles, dehumanizing them.

After all, I am what I eat.

With that understanding, we turn to the corresponding virtue: Temperence.

Temperence is more than just a pretty word for discipline. Yes, it’s a dictate of self-restraint that also features prominently in discipline, but there’s an extra edge of using that restraint toward specific, countering ends. I’m perfectly able to practice discipline in my disorders to the benefit of no one. Temperence, however, will steer me away from those ill-suited practices.

Let’s apply a little Temperence toward my particular trouble with Gluttony, shall we? At a glance, it would be simple for me to practice Temperence with regard to how I view people and their motives, but I can see that this isn’t the problem so much as the symptom. What I need to combat here is my voracious appetite for finding the flaws in my fellow man. It’s a bit of a compounded sin, blended for my pleasure, but I expect that’s the case for most. A little Gluttony here, some Envy there, a sprinkle of Wrath and blend with a heaping helping of Pride. This will take time to pull apart and treat with the right virtues, but with all things I need to start somewhere, and here it is. The first stop, peeling myself away from King Content. I’ll be reducing my time spent on political matters and putting that time toward something less mentally warping. Prayers and higher pursuits when I can manage, my music library when I can’t.

Though I’m starting with Gluttony, I recognize it can be one of the more pernicious of the sins. I sympathize with people that have food addictions – it is the only addiction where one cannot go cold-turkey and live without. When it comes to Gluttony, we must consume to live. But relying on Temperence, we can fight to ensure that consumption doesn’t become a force unto itself and, if we find ourselves geared toward overconsumption, that we guide that nature toward the overconsumption of what is good and just. A zeal for holiness and bettering the world around us, as always, beginning with ourselves.

Until next time, my friends, when we explore Gluttony’s fraternal twin, Avarice.