Posted on 11/03/2013 5:45:41 AM PST by Kaslin
Do any of you remember back in the day when, if you were a listless, visionless, slack-jawed, gum-smackin’ laggard, your parents and peers would look at you weirdly and they wouldn’t make excuses for you, or say you have some special disease like “lazyassotosis”, and that’s why you’re such a daft dasypygal?
In addition, how many can hearken back to a bygone era when you actually would be held criminally liable, or at least looked at weirdly, by culture when you didn’t try to help, if able, to stop a crime or rescue a damsel in distress?
Further, and I’m really going to date myself with this one, can any of you remember giving those able-bodied relatives of yours who sponged off the government that same look your dog gives you when he catches you having sex? Y’know what I’m talking about don’t you?That furrowed-brow gaze of confusion, disdain and personal embarrassment that makes you slowly back out of the room said person is in.
Historically, culturally and ecclesiastically speaking we used to view the slothful as the sinful. Nowadays, getting your money for nothing and your check for free is seen as a right; and people actually revel in what used to be a shame.
So, what is sloth?
Sloth is, essentially, the desire to sit on your butt and pick lint from your navel because you’re a jaded and dejected, bleak little monkey. Sloth is the sin, according to Dorothy Sayers, “which believes nothing, cares for nothing, seeks to know nothing, interferes with nothing, enjoys nothing, loves nothing, hates nothing, finds purpose in nothing, lives for nothing, and only remains alive because there is nothing it will die for.”
The decadent tub of spiritual lard that’s satiated with this swill will not lift a finger to fight insanity or to stand for God or country because, to them, there isn’t anything worth getting riled up about. As they see it, life has sucked, does suck and will continue to suck, and they feel there’s nada they can do about it. Therefore, don’t ask or expect them to cheerlead any cause because the world, according to this gloomy group, is irrevocably hell-bent-for-leather. And anyways, being a sluggard is a simple sin in that all you have to do to do this is do nothing when you’re supposed to do something.
For clarification, when most folks think of someone who’s given to sloth, they usually conjure up an image of some bloated, slow moving, mumbling, unshorn, unemployed human sea cow with excessive eye boogers. The fact is that most indolents aren’t your typical, heel-draggin’ slackers. True slothfulness is easy to hide under a flurry of inconsequential activities and sudsy busyness. Yes, you can be hectic, fit, religious and industrious and still be slothful. “But how?” you might ask. Here’s the real acid test to gauge whether or not you have this soul disease: when that which is consequential confronts you . . . such as the pursuit of God, the good, the true and the beautiful . . . how do you react?
Does that which is holy, just and good get a rise out of you and cause you to get off your butt and move into action? Or do you stand there and stare at the substantial like a calf looking at a new gate, and then shrug and say, “Whatever.”
Sloth cannot be simply reduced to just dallying. Classically defined, sloth is a sluggishness of spirit which is the byproduct of a Van Gogh-like spiritual gloominess that no longer sees the merit of the meaningful and, ironically, leaves one, as Os Guinness states, trying to find “meaning in its own meaninglessness”; like millions do on Facebook.
So, how does one fight off the noon-day demons, the mid-life malaise, the teenaged stagnations, and the bean burrito drowsiness? In The Sermon on the Mount, Christ tabled, in contrast to slothful soul sludge, a hunger and a thirst for righteousness.
Jesus, far from being a Pollyanna and far from ministering in easy and uncomplicated times, said one is “blessed” when, in the midst of all the major crapola that’s going down on the planet, including all the bad religion, corrupt politics and war torn nations, one still hungers and thirsts for that which is right. Jesus said you’re fortunate when you can keep focused on ideals and hotly pursue them when circumstances are screaming for you to jump ship.
Spiritually myopic people move into sloth mode when they’re confronted with the above crud. They see problems as a nice out from activity. They cannot see right when wrong is around. They cannot hunger for ideals unless the birds are chirping. Their conscious or unconscious response when their world ceases to look like a beer commercial is, “Forget you, guys. I’m moving to Disneyland.”
Jesus, on the other hand, was fueled by selfless passion rooted in a firm persuasion that good would triumph over evil in time and in eternity. This caused him to be, let’s say, “involved” with what was happening in His day. Yep, for those who can read and have read the gospel, you don’t see Jesus dragging though life like George Costanza in passive indifference to that which was good, bad and ugly. He saw the ideal and saw what was currently being played out on the planet and, being the unreasonable, hopeful rebel that He was, He got a whip and started clearing the punks. If it wasn’t right, then he felt compelled to correct it instead of slothfully standing by and just watching.
* The above was taken and paraphrased from Os Guinness’ lecture on the Seven Deadly Sins.
Ha ha...priceless!
That pretty much describes a LOT of the SNAP/EBT users I see in WalMart all the time.
In my life.
BIG BUMP!!!
Libs thrive on the 7 deadly sins:
Lust - out-of-wedlock births, all kinds of sexual deviance
Gluttony - as long as “I got mine” to heck with everyone and every other ideal.
Greed - more and more taxes needed to feed the government maw, while accusing the real producers of the same sin.
Sloth - slack off, sponge, or hope to hit the lawsuit lottery
Wrath - call the opposition all kinds of names, incite racial and other hatreds.
Envy - tax the rich
Pride - gay pride, black pride, etc. (instead of work ethic and morality) and Obama’s constant “I, I, I, me, me”
A sloth can actually run 15 mph. Don’t let them fool you. So maybe “sloth” is not the best descriptor for these indolent tubs of truculent goo.
An important stop on the path to liberalism.
My late son was on Food stamps, but I guarantee you he did not buy stuff he was not supposed to, and he mostly bought store brand items because he thought they were cheaper and he could stretch his stamps out. Also if you are talking about the ridiculous pictures of how some Wal-Mart shoppers dress, I have never seen any like these here in our Wal-Mart stores and we have three here. The closest on to me is less then 2 miles away from me. As a matter of fact it is 1.09 miles, which is practically walking distance
So...being bleak and dejected is a sin?
bump
I think Doug Giles is referring to sloths because they sleep from 15-18 hours per day.
Hey,hey,
Sloth works.
Look at the Obamadork.
Golf, anyone?
Sloth is, essentially, the desire to sit on your butt and pick lint from your navel because you’re a jaded and dejected, bleak little monkey. Sloth is the sin, according to Dorothy Sayers, “which believes nothing, cares for nothing, seeks to know nothing, interferes with nothing, enjoys nothing, loves nothing, hates nothing, finds purpose in nothing, lives for nothing, and only remains alive because there is nothing it will die for.”
I would also say that it goes hand in hand with the cynicism that permeates our society. The feeling that you and I can’t do anything, shouldn’t bother. Lofty cynicism gives a genteel hiding place for sloth.
I remember coming home from school one day many years ago in Germany when I was in the third grade and my mother was laying on the couch taking a nap. I asked her what the had and she said Faulenzia which is the German equivalent for lazyasstosis. She laughed when she noticed I thought it was a serious disease and explained to me that she felt like being lazy. Which she normally wasn’t. I guarantee you
Excellent point!
I think the point is that it is a sin when you relish it, rely upon it and/or look forward to it.
Born in ‘52 when self-sufficiency was still an asset instead of an attempt to overthrow the government. Had an uncle who had some weird disease that rendered him “disabled” but never seemed to affect his ability to build a canoe from a kit, go fishing, etc. He was a true odd duck and was probably unemployable other than as a janitor, but I can assert that he was also the black sheep of the family for not doing what he could to earn some of his own money. That was a time when Blacks (Negroes) were purchasing houses and eventually became the majority in our neighborhood. The family next door revitalized their house to a very nice, if pink, looking structure and were personal friends. The family structure was strong and we were all neighbors who took care of family and earned an income. After the race riots of the ‘60s, the area became a slum and fell into disrepair - we had some of the original Black families living in the same suburban housing community that we moved into to escape the inner city - the rest went along with the rioters in deciding that hating Whitey and getting the government (which all liberals seemed to hate at the time) to take care of them. The ‘50s - ‘60s era was the fulcrum which tipped the scales to what we have today.
The left promotes and feeds on the dark side of human nature, especially envy and greed. Sloth, economic chaos and selfishness, in the name of noble ideals, are the sources of power of the totalitarians. Absolute dependence on government will grant them absolute power, and we know where that will lead.
Indeed we do
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.