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.
Only if it was falling out of a tree.
It's actually 0.15 mph. :^)
I did a marketing internship for a natural science center with a zoo, they had a few sloths. Occasionally the rheas, smart sneaky birds, South American kin to the ostrich but slightly smaller, would unlatch a gate or work a section of fence loose and go on the lam. Other species would join in at times, once a sloth. All hands were called out to corral them back into the enclosure. Yes they can run, as fast as a human can. Got some claws on them, too. Capable of being quite nasty if they don’t want to do what you’re trying to make them do. Koalas can be surprisingly nasty, too. They’re sleepy, cuddly and cute most of the time, but man don’t ever piss one off, lol.
Welfare started to become generally stigmatized in the 1950’s as it became associated with single mothers, divorced women and black women with kids but without a man in the house (primarily AFDC). Probably a lot more than today simply caught up in the wrong situation falsely stereotyped and judged as scamming the system or not doing their part to advance themselves.
Actually, yes. Depression used to be considered one of the deadly sins.
What timing! Today there was a Jack Hanna program on TV where he was visiting a wildlife rescue center in Panama where they have rescued numerous baby sloths and raised them until they can live on their own in the wild. Cute little animals.
“As a matter of fact it is 1.09 miles, which is practically walking distance”
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I walk farther than that just trying to find my mislaid tools.
There was a time in this country when Oregon was walking-distance from St. Louis.
Yes.
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