Of the 7 Deadly Sins, I find Lust and Wrath to be the most harmful to humanity. That may say more about me, than it does humanity. Lust to excess leads to unseemly, crass actions. I am stunned by news programs where a bait is placed on the Internet and some guy shows up at the home of a 13, 14, 15-year-old, ready to have sex. It is a sickness, a disease. These men need help. Is it desperation? When it comes to children, sex should not be in the picture. Not even a thought.
Wrath – anger. In the extreme, anger is rage. I have seen internal rage tear up friendships, destroy a person’s spiritual life. Anger to the extreme eats a person’s soul from the inside out, creates bitterness, leads to wife beating, domestic abuse, heartbreak, bruised and battered bones. Families are torn up, destroyed. Verbal abuse. Relationships, toast.
I am trying to write about the negatives, the Deadly Sins. But I am tired of the negative. It wears on me. I find myself wanting to focus more on the positive, the Virtues. I make daily choices not to stay at the negative. It seems so much more fruitful to see the glass half full.
I once read a study on happiness and the bottom line was that people who focus more on the positive, live longer, happier, more productive lives. That doesn’t mean being naïve. You can live in reality, make change, give back to humanity, rise above your own adversity, and still spin each day to the positive side. Some may find that lacks edge. But I’m not at a place where I want to live on the edge. I am looking for peace.
Of the 7 Virtues, I would say Temperance is the one that has given me the most trouble. Not in terms of modesty. But discipline. There are areas where I lack discipline. I find the more structure I place around the problem areas, the more successful I am. Procrastination – I place that under Temperance. I don’t procrastinate around my writing anymore. That is something that has changed from doing daily writing practices over years. When I drop off, or stop the practice for a while, it is still hard to get back into it. Better to keep it going in small increments every day.
Food is another area that I have struggled with most of my life. I don’t have the thin, will-o’-the-wisp body, metabolism and frame that can eat anything. I have the peasant body, the apple shape. It takes work for me to remain at a good weight for me. When it comes to exercise, I am a slug. I guess that would fall into the area of Sloth. The opposite of Sloth is Diligence. Diligence comes back to structure, careful use of time and energy, discipline.
There seems to be a fine line between some of the Virtues and Sins. Shades of purple gray. I am not Catholic and don’t know what it means to go to confession, though it is depicted in movies and television as being a sacrament where anything is forgiven, even murder. I don’t understand how that works. You are spiritually forgiven by virtue of a few words, yet you still have to pay the Piper, the worldly price for your sins?
I quickly glance at the two lists again. I see the Virtues and Sins as human traits. As long as we have brains and bodies, we’re going to make wrong choices. And we’re going to look for ways to absolve ourselves. When it comes down to it, isn’t it the severity of the sin? And the faithfulness or sincerity of the virtue? Sadly, sometimes it is who you know that determines your punishment. Or how much money you have. Is the world a just or unjust place? Justice should be a Virtue.
-posted on red Ravine, Monday, April 21, 2008
-related to Topic post, WRITING TOPIC – THE 7 DEADLY SINS
QM very interesting. I like how you think out loud when you write.
Sin is such a fascinating subject..an evolving subject for me. A lot of what we think is sin is due to inherited beliefs..eh?
Hmmm…is ego a sin? Sometimes I think all the others sins are a result of ego.
Good read!
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You wrote all that in 10 minutes?!?! Crikey!
My 10 minutes freewriting exercises are nowhere near that link. You must be in a zone when you do these.
Amazing . . . and a good read, by the way.
Brian
(This comment took me just over a minute. Ugh!)
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QM, I’m certainly no intellectual but I’m working my brain around these 7 deadly sins. You are one of the smartest folks I’ve come across so I’m going to pose this to you… Of the seven deadly sins, the last, “Pride” is said to be the most evil. I realize ostentatious love of oneself is really bad…it’s actually kinda creepy and makes me think of people kissing their own mirrors… but what about hurting ones’ pride and that person (to whom it happened) being allowed to feel the hurt without it necessarily being a sin? Or having pride in your children. I’d hope that would count as a good thing. The English language is full of words that can be used in more than one context. No wonder people using it as their second language have so much trouble understanding.
H
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gypsy-heart, ego, hmmmm. I wonder if that falls under Pride? Ego is a tough one. I think a little ego is helpful, especially for those with low self-esteem. For me, it becomes problematic when it falls into the arrogant or narcissistic area. I have a hard time with self-serving arrogance myself. Though I do think that a person has to have guts and confidence to get their work out there.
I agree, a lot of what we know as sin, we inherited from the religious or spiritual (or the lack thereof) beliefs that we grow up with. But then, we get to make choices as adults about what we want to carry into our own lives and/or pass down to our kids.
I feel lucky because in my family, we had to go to church to a certain age — then we got to make our own choices. We were not forced as adults to lean a certain way in our religious beliefs. Religion and spirituality is so personal, as it should be. It is between us and our Higher Powers. You know it’s interesting, because I have met people who are atheists who still have a Higher Power.
Brian, thank you. Yes, in 10 minutes. I do go into the zone when I do writing practices. I also type them (unless I am in a writing group where I write by hand) and I’m a fast typer. It all just streams out.
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QM, I’ve always thought that Wrath (Hatred) is the most destructive for society. But as I read through each of the descriptions, it was almost impossible to order them in any way. In any amount besides miniscule, they all have the power to destroy.
I loved this topic yet struggled to sit down and actually do a writing practice on it. I felt I could more readily do a drawing or painting practice, just doodle my way through it. I didn’t though. I finally wrote.
It sounds as though you had resistance, too, on account of the pull to negativity that “sin” (and especially deadly ones) had. Glad you pushed through it.
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p.s., regarding tydaddy’s comment on the amount of writing you manage to produce in 10 minutes and your reply, you’ll see my 15-min writing practice is shorter than your 10-min one. For blog posts, I always write out my writing practices in a notebook. If I were to type my out directly onto the computer, it would be way longer. I am always amazed at how much more I can get out if I “keyboard” instead of handwrite. I, too, am a fast typist.
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Heather, I find you to have a delicious combination of smarts and humor. I always love reading your comments.
I’ve got to tell you, I didn’t know much about the history of the 7 deadly sins or the virtues until reading this Topic. It’s all pretty new to me and my interest was revived by the Vatican recently adding 7 more deadly sins they consider to be modern day vices. I just found that so interesting. Especially in light of the exposure over the last 10 years of the improprieties with some priests in the church (the new sins seem to address the child abuse).
But what I wanted to say was, Pride, I think it’s a matter of degree. I personally believe we all need a little pride – in our work, in our kids, in our families, friends. And, as I mentioned in the last comment, especially if we have struggled with low self-esteem in our lives. Then we might have to learn to have pride and to carry ourselves proudly, rather than hanging our heads.
I get the feeling they are talking about the extreme in pride – arrogance, huge egos, narcissism, thinking we are better than anyone else that walks the earth. Maybe it’s that kind of Pride that leads to all other sins — maybe they are rooted in a sense of distorted self-importance.
Pride in one’s children, I would hope parents would be proud. And keep on keeping on with that! The English language is full of craziness and words with triple meanings. And then you have all the dialects across the country. Words are fascinating. And writing on this Topic can take a person all kinds of directions!
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ybonesy, I found it a hard writing practice to do. It’s a huge Topic and it was hard to get specific. I did have a lot of resistance to sitting down and writing on it.
I think the natural thing to do is then to look at your own life and compare it under each category – in both the Sins and the Virtues. So looking back, it also brings up things I have done that I’m not that proud of. Fortunately, I can also look at the Virtues list and know I have a few virtues, too!
Yes, I do think all the sins have the power to destroy. I guess it’s up to our personal leanings which ones seem worse to us than others. I wonder if the ones that seem worse to us come from the ways we perceive ourselves as having been wronged over a lifetime? Or the way we see them unfolding across today’s world (on the larger scale). So many questions!
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The conversation about Pride reminds me that in the Latino culture, and especially among New Mexico and multi-generational Hispanics in the US, Humility is a much valued trait and Pride a much denegrated one. I’ve seen it in my family and in many other families who come from this background and tradition. I think when it’s taken that far, it becomes a challenge.
For example, in the workplace, where your success depends largely on BOTH your ability to accomplish much AND to gain credit for those accomplishments, it goes against cultural upbring to shine that spotlight on one’s own performance. Of course, as with any generality, in reality there are exceptions and there are shades.
I think pride in a child is absolutely, positively critical to that her well-being. There’s always a balance to strike, isn’t there? Perpetuating the message that everything she does is stellar, however, is not good for her.
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ybonesy, I didn’t know that. And it’s good to note that cultural values can shape what we see as valued traits and what we see as denigrated traits. Humility is a trait I strongly value. But it seems like too much can lead to meekness or standing in the shadows while others take credit, which can be detrimental, especially in work environments (as you mentioned).
It seems to me, too, that children, especially girls, need to be instilled with a strong sense of themselves, — pride in who they are as a person, not how they look — well before they hit the teenage years. It’s a ruthless time in terms of peer pressure (and societal pressures).
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You’ve worked in those environments where the credit thing is do-or-die for career success. And yes, the meekness can be and is detrimental. I see it a lot at my work.
Again, back to birth order (as we’ve touched on in comments here and there throughout red Ravine), being the youngest of five, I’ve never had a problem with not being able to put a spotlight on myself. I guess I had a lot of attention as a kid.
I notice even with my two girls, I baby the younger one more. It’s a sort of natural, human response. Or at least a natural one for mothers. I have to watch that all the time.
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Yeah, that birth order thing again. As the oldest, I am used to deflecting attention, putting it on and into those younger than me. Taking care of. The first born *does* have the benefit of being the first. But I remember what a jolt it was when my brother came along after I had been the first and only child for 4 years. It’s a bit of a shock at first!
I wouldn’t change my birth order for anything though. I like being the oldest. It’s odd for me though, because as an adult, I haven’t lived in the same town as my other siblings. It has made a difference. They treat me really well when I make it back home, sometimes like a Queen. And at those moments, I feel like the youngest!
I also think it makes a difference if the firstborn is male or female. The expectations are totally different.
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It sounds like you have experienced a bit of how it’s like to be an only child, a firstborn, and the youngest — all of these — in your lifetime so far. Four years is a pretty long time to be the only child.
Dee was 3-1/2 when I had Em, and I felt so sad for Dee to lose that sole-attention spot in the family. Of course, there were lots of great things to come — companionship, laughter, friendship. But at the same time, I really felt for her loss of that special space.
I bet that you have some pretty clear memories of being 4, being as how such a big event (your brother’s birth) happened at that time. Is that the case?
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ybonesy, yes, I do have some vivid memories of being 4 years old. We lived in Tennessee at the time my brother was born. And moved back to Georgia shortly after that. I remember when my brother came home from the hospital.
And, you know, when I was driving around with my parents last June, they talked a little about that time in Tennessee. Daddy said he worked a lot and was rarely home (though I do remember him being there, and teaching me to ride my bike). And Mom said she got the mumps (I believe) and was really sick, so at 4, I would push my brother around in the stroller to help her out. There were many things I loved about having a new baby brother, too!
I think you just kind of settle in to being the oldest. You learn to take responsibility at a young age. I recently ran into some black & white photographs of that time period. I find I have fond memories of it. I’ve got some of them out on my writing desk.
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