God is Angry

God is angry with our defiances, blasphemies and idolatries; angry with the way we treat our neighbors; angry with the way we treat the poor, the alien and the marginalized; angry with the way we treat our enemies. Far from ignoring or indulging such lovelessness God deplores it, and this is no irrational, evanescent or intemperate fury. It is the deliberate, measured, judicious response of God to our collective revolt against his rule, and to the systemic injustice which marks human society. We may pretend that our denials of the rights of our fellow human beings, our abuse of the other creatures with whom we share the planet, and our spoilation of our common habitat, are but peccadillos: only small, trivial sins. But in God’s eyes, the earth is filled with violence (Gen. 6:11), and it appalls him.

–Donald Macleod

A Lenten Collect

Almighty God, you alone can bring into order the unruly wills and affections of sinners: Grant your people grace to love what you command and desire what you promise; that, among the swift and varied changes of the world, our hearts may surely there be fixed where true joys are to be found; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

-The Book of Common Prayer

Far Too Easily Pleased

The New Testament has lots to say about self-denial, but not about self-denial as an end in itself. We are told to deny ourselves and to take up our crosses in order that we may follow Christ; and nearly every description of what we shall ultimately find if we do so contains an appeal to desire. If there lurks in most modern minds the notion that to desire our own good and earnestly to hope for the enjoyment of it is a bad thing, I submit that this notion has crept in from Kant and the Stoics and is no part of the Christian faith. Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.

–C.S. Lewis

The Deep Rest of Chastity

“Air and Fire”

From my wife and household and fields
that I have so carefully come to in my time
I enter the craziness of travel,
the reckless elements of air and fire.
Having risen up from my native land,
I find myself smiled at by beautiful women,
making me long for a whole life
to devote to each one, making love to her
in some house, in some way of sleeping
and waking I would make only for her.
And all over the country I find myself
falling in love with houses, woods, and farms
that I will never set foot in.
My eyes go wandering through America,
two wayfaring brothers, resting in silence
against the forbidden gates. O what if
an angel came to me, and said,
“Go free of what you have done. Take
what you want.” The atoms of blood
and brain and bone strain apart
at the thought. What I am is the way home.
Like rest after a sleepless night,
my old love comes on me in midair.
—Wendell Berry

Eating and Drinking…A Lot

For Jesus “feast” was not just a “metaphor” for the kingdom. As Jesus announced the feast of the kingdom, He also brought it into reality through His own feasting. Unlike many theologians, He did not come preaching an ideology, promoting ideas, or teaching moral maxims. He came teaching about the feast of the kingdom, and he came feasting in the kingdom. Jesus did not go around merely talking about eating and drinking; he went around eating and drinking. A lot.

–Peter Leithart

Nothing to Die For

In the world sloth calls itself tolerance; but in hell it is called despair. It is the accomplice of every other sin and their worst punishment. It is the sin that believes in 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 remains alive only because there is nothing it would die for.

–Dorothy Sayers

Busy Sloth

Sloth is most often evidenced in busyness … in frantic running around, trying to be everything to everyone, and then having no time to listen or pray, no time to become the person who is doing these things.

–Eugene Peterson

Pride, Sloth, Gluttony, or All Three?

The Misery of Sloth

[W]e are revealed in His light as those who lead a false existence, remaining in exile and therefore in misery as though the true God had come to us in vain, as though He had not taken us up with Him, as though we were not already at home in and with Him, sharing His royal freedom. This is what gives to the human situation the determination and character of human misery. It is the evil fruit of the sloth of man. It is the unavoidable fate of the sloth of man. Remaining behind instead of going up with Him, he is necessarily the one who is left behind in misery. He prefers his own life below to the divine life above. He chooses to persist in it. He must have it as he himself wills to have it. He must be the one he himself wills to be. He is thus the man who remains below where he does not belong, and is not at home.

–Karl Barth

Just Like Us…Only Better

Enviers don’t usually envy those who are far removed from their lives and lifestyles, or who are vastly more talented or successful than they are. They tend to envy people to whom they might actually be compared unfavorably, that is, those who are just like them—only better.

–Rebecca DeYoung