Day 63: 3/4/13- Seven Deadly Sins Week: Sloth

Day 63: 3/4/13- Seven Deadly Sins Week: Sloth     
New Thing- Sing Taize with the Pastoral Care Committee, Finish EVERYTHING humanly possible on my "to-do-list"   
Inspiration: Lent 
Time: All Day   
Bottom Line: "It is better to have loafed and lost than to never have loafed at all." -James Thurber

No. Not that kind.

 
Reflection: Continuing this week's theme of combating the seven deadly sins, I meditated on the effects of my slothful behavior on my soul. Here is the wikipedia description of this vice:

Sloth is one of the seven deadly sins in Christian moral tradition, particularly within Catholicism, that refers to laziness. Sloth is defined as spiritual or emotional apathy, neglecting what God has spoken, and being physically and emotionally inactive. Sloth can also indicate a wasting due to lack of use, concerning a person, place, thing, skill, or intangible ideal that would require maintenance, refinement, or support to continue to exist. While sloth is sometimes defined as physical laziness, spiritual laziness is emphasized. Failing to develop spiritually is key to becoming guilty of sloth. In the Christian faith, sloth rejects grace and God.

Now, I am not one who normally gets accused of being lazy. But, in truth, being busy is not the same as working for God's will. And I certainly can be accused of letting busyness get in the way of getting closer to God. I think that temptation can be especially strong with you can convince yourself that since you work for the church, then all that busy-work is in the service of the Lord.

So, today I took a look at my spiritual life to see where I let work come before prayer verses letting work become prayer. I started by adding more prayer brakes to my schedule and more time devoted singularly to focusing on D. when I got home rather then trying to multitask during down time.

After my first prayer round, it occurred to me that combating soul sloth was really about perception and focus--perceiving God as the goal of all actions and focusing on doing the task at hand. Thus, the next meditation of the day was prayers of focus (with the Women's Ministry) and then songs of mindfulness (which was with the awesome Pastoral Care Committee) using Taize chant to give my "monkey mind" (that leads to distraction) something to do as we sunk deeper into prayer.

I noticed that as I kept asking God to help me focus and be productive, that things seemed to take less time and I was much less tempted to goof off. For example, the next goal for combating sloth was to do all the things on my "to-do list" that have been languishing there for a while. You know the type of task--the one that does not have a hard-and-fast due date but needs to be done at some point. And so you keep putting it off and keep transferring it from your old list to your next's week's list. I find that that drains my soul--and so today was the day to knock them off. And, with God's help, they are all done!

The best part that all that "work" seemed to be less of a burden and more of a blessing.

Fun Fact: Did you know that the 3-toed-sloth moves so slowly that they actually grow moss in their fur? Here's to not letting our spirits become moss covered!