Fess Up: Anyone for Gluttony or Greed?

I've already written about lust in the first of this four part series, so I might as well tackle the other two of the Seven Deadly Sins that fall in the category of excessive love of earthly pleasures: Greed and Gluttony. If Dante could lump the sins of lust, greed and gluttony together in 'Purgatorio' I can, too. After all, without Dante to rank the sins would we even have---on second thought, let's not go there! I don't want the natives to get restless here.

We all know something about greed. Or we think it's about amassing money or worldly goods and hoarding it all for ourselves. Literally speaking this is true, I guess, but how much is too much? Who decides when we've got enough Ding Dongs and dollars in our cupboards to ward off future catastrophic events? Greed, as in one of the Seven Deadly Sins, only makes sense when we hold it up against The Virtue in which that sin offends. Here, that virtue is Generosity.

Okay, so sharing is good. I think I read that in a book titled, 'All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten.' So in theory if we share our Ding Dongs with the cat and drop a check in the mail to a do-gooder group do we automatically become virtuous? Do we also have to shout for joy that we've got cake to share and have that extra bonus from work that would otherwise buy us more toys, if not spent buying bread for our less fortunate brothers and sisters? No, no, no! Our generosity can't be shouted from the roof tops or we'll stumble our way into the vanity department of taking credit and expecting praises. Being virtuous is hard work, isn't it!

Okay, let's look at this from another angle. What if that box of Ding Dongs hidden away represents more than just food, it fills a hole in the heart? It's become an adult security blanket. If we give away our last Ding Dong in a situation like that is it generosity or fool-heartedness? If we are generous in other ways, giving of ourselves to serve others in a Mother Teresa sort of way, does that trump one tiny sin of hoarding chocolate cream-stuffed cake high on a shelve? Hey, I just ask the questions. I have no answers.

I do know that having wealth, in itself, is not evil. I do know that people who work hard are entitled to enjoy the fruits of their labor. I also know that true generosity is a quiet thing. Something we must all root out in our own hearts like a sow after Gummy Bears in the dark. Generosity versus Greed is about more than just money, wealth and winning first place on American Idol. It's about its polar opposite of giving without expectations. It's about sharing our knowledge, ourselves, our spotlights on the stage of life. (Glory hallelujah! But don't pass the collection plate just yet. We still need to talk about gluttony.)

Gluttony---as in one of the Seven Deadly Sins---is harder to define than greed. Some people think they can pick out the ones who sin against the virtues of temperance and faith. They think it's all about excesses in food, drink and entertainment involving eatable panties. But what gives any of us the right to judge the alcoholic whose ancestral background may predispose him to addiction? Or to judge the obese woman who may cry in her pillow each night as being less virtuous than the thin little chickie who might be sticking her fingers down her throat each day to make herself barf up her super? Can we always judge a book by its cover---sort the medical problems out from the lack of personal temperance? Does knowing the scriptures give a person the right to put mental ear tags on each fat person they meet, like bagging a deer during hunting season? Did too much Krypton fall out of some of our comic books when we were kids giving us imagined powers beyond the normal? Temperance, as a Virtue, accepts that there are natural limitations to pleasures. Gluttony pushes beyond...but is that sin or illness? Only The Shadow knows.

If I was a fire and brimstone preacher, this is where I'd hold the Holy Book up high and shout, "Judge not, lest you be judged, oh brothers and sisters!" Or do I have my preachers mixed up? Would not the fire and brimstone makers be saying something about us already having been judged and coming up on the wrong side of the yard stick? Oh, darn, I can't sort out my preachers just now. So I'll close this little---some would say---irreverent essay by paraphrasing Robert Fulghum's book about things learned in kindergarten and state, "Ladies and gentlemen, go out in the world and 'play fair!'" ©