Diligence

 

November 19, 2024

iCharacter

Hi!  How is each and every one? How I love this word, diligence!  I have always regarded this virtue to mean loving and caring in whatever one is occupied in, with and always alluding to God.  It is always associated to love and not without effort.  What comes to mind now is Elon Musk’s motto, DOGE that goes “Do only good every day.”  I heard this over through the news. Then I learned after Trump was elected and proceeded to choosing his cabinet members that Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy have been appointed to a new department known as Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).  What do you think about that?  Coincidence? 

Somebody commented the other day that she found inspiration in that motto, DOGE.  She challenges herself to “Do good in every opportunity.”  She said at first she thought of “Don’t miss any opportunity to do good” but she wanted to rephrase it to a positive statement, DGEO hence “Do good in every opportunity.” Hmm, seems to me she finds inspiration in Elon Musk.

I am reminded of some words of St. Josemaria regarding liturgical prayers and actions during liturgical rites.  Carry them out ac digne, ac attente, ac devote – with dignity, with attention and with devotion that they deserve, being present in what is being done. They are occasions for making individual acts of faith, hope and love and actions through which the entire Church expresses its faith, hope and love (cf. To Know Him and to Know Yourself (XI):  Souls of Liturgical Prayer).  This advice is likewise applied to professional work and every activity, duty, task that one does for the glory of God.

Let us now continue learning more about our divine longing for peace (From Broken Gods, Hope, Healing, and the Seven Longings of the Human Heart, Gregory K. Popcak, Ph. D. Ch 6).

How Sloth Distorts the Divine Longing for Peace

The most deadly poison of our times is indifference. —St. Maximillian Kolbe

 

Sloth is the deadly sin that frustrates our ability to satisfy our divine longing for peace.  We tend to think of sloth as simple laziness.  We imagine it as the sin of sitting in front of the TV too much, taking too long a break, or wasting time, but there’s more to it than that.

Sloth is the sin of indifference, of choosing not to try to improve a relationship or a situation I know to be unhealthy or unjust, either because I think it would be too hard, or just because I don’t feel like it.  Sloth is Satan’s counterfeit of peace.  Where peace is the harmony that exists because a problem has been satisfactorily resolved and, ultimately, greater union with God has been achieved, sloth is the attempt to eliminate tension, conflict, or complications by simply sticking one’s head in the sand.  Sloth is the sin of “not sweating the small stuff” and deciding that almost everything is small stuff.

Dreamstime

David is a nice guy. Everyone likes him for his agreeable, easygoing nature.  Unfortunately, he drives his wife, Lilly, crazy because he never offers an opinion about anything.  “Whatever you want, Hon” is David’s motto.  Lilly often jokes that she’s going to have those words engraved on his tombstone.

“At first I thought he was just being generous and deferential,” Lilly says.  “But it’s getting to where I just don’t feel like he cares about anything.  It doesn’t matter what I ask him, from ‘What color would you prefer in the bedroom?’ to ‘Which school do you think the kids should go to?’ It’s always ‘I don’t know’ or ‘What do you think?’ God forbid I try to bring up something contentious like the budget or his mother; he’s totally allergic to conflict.  He just completely shuts down, like a deer in the headlights.  Sometimes I feel like I’ve married a ghost.  I could really use a little less ‘nice’ and a lot more passion and investment in our lives.”

Iconfinder

 Katelin is a nurse for a hospice program.  Because hospice is intended to provide end-of-life care, the rules state that hospice can accept patients only if their doctors believe they have six months or less to live.  Katelin has noticed that the director has been allowing many people who have serious chronic illnesses into the program.  Many of these people are struggling with serious problems, but they could live for many years and could be better served by programs other than hospice.  Katelin is concerned that the director is padding their census and, potentially, committing insurance fraud.  Despite this, she has decided to turn a blind eye and not even ask the director to explain why these patients are being admitted. “It’s my job to provide patient care.  I’m there to help people, not make waves,” Katelin says.

David and Katelin are both settling for sloth in an attempt to satisfy their longing for true peace.  Neither of them is doing what they could to engage in their lives and address the issues that are right in front of them.  David thinks that the key to a peaceful life is refusing to rock the boat even a little.  He has allowed himself to become a total nonperson in order to maintain the quiet life he mistakes for a peaceful one, and in the process he is alienating his wife.  For her part, Katelin believes that there are serious problems in her workplace, and while she may not bear any responsibility for the decisions that are made by the hospice administrator, she is complicit with the structures of sin in her workplace by refusing to even ask for clarification about why certain patients are being admitted.

Dreamstime.com

 It would be easy to criticize David and Katelin, except that we’ve all been guilty of similar sins of omission.  How often do we agree with others just to get along?  How many times do we see a problem at home, or at work, or in our parish, or in our community but we refuse to do even the little we could because we just don’t need the hassle?  How often do we see a person close to us hurting, but we turn a blind eye because we’re just too tired to deal with whatever is bothering them?  And why do we do it?  Is it because we’re “bad people”? I think it’s too easy to come to that conclusion, and anyway it’s not at all true.  We don’t commit such sins of omission because we want to be bad; we commit them because we long for peace—“the tranquillity that comes from right order”—but we tell ourselves that such a peace is neither possible nor worth the effort, so we settle for quiet.

I want to be clear.  Some situations do call for patience.  As we saw in our discussion of the divine longing for justice, sometimes we do need to let our good efforts mature, and that requires us to step away wait, and watch for a time.  But that’s different from refusing to do what we could to address a situation that is disturbing the peace.

Classically, sloth is known by the more technical name acedia, which is defined as running away from the opportunity to discern or do what would be good.  Sloth separates us from God’s call to divinization because it prevents us from asking what God might want us to do, out of either complete disregard for God’s will or because we’re afraid that if we asked him what he wanted he might actually tell us. It is one thing if through thoughtful prayer, careful discernment, and responsible consultation we consciously decide that it would be better to leave something alone.

It is another thing to simply fail to consider the questioning he first place out of a desire to avoid trouble.

Indeed!  Life is simple, but personal pride insists on making it complicated by creating or forming issues she thinks she deserves.  A person who reacts violently saying she has no issues and accuses the other one to have them, in the end proves by her actuation that she is the one who has issues after all.  My suggestion is never, never, ever entertain your pride because in the end you will have to get yourself out of it and will have a hard time doing so.  When you had a more peaceful life before, you have made it complicated.  I recall an auntie of mine once commented that between her and my uncle she has learned her lesson.  Every time they get into a heated argument, she already knows what will happen afterwards.  There will be silence for who knows until when.  So she learned to conquer herself and say when the need arises “Hoy so and so, mag-uusap na rin lang tayo balang araw mag-usap na tayo ngayon.”  “We will talk anyway; sometime later let us talk now.”

Seriously, life is simple. Resolve to resist one’s pride from making issues that make your life with another person/s more complicated and convoluted. 

Again I will never tire of ending with the suggestion to talk things over with God during the quiet moments of each day of your dialogue with Him, listen to Him and heed what He tells you to do.  Ask God for the grace to carry out what needs to be done by you and you alone.  Don’t expect the other person to undo what you personally chose to do.  Be responsible for your choice of issues.

See you in the next post, “May tomorrow be a perfect day; may you find love and laughter along the way; may God keep you in his tender care; ‘til He brings us together again.”

Affectionately,                    

Guadalupinky