Am I, really? Are you? I’m inclined to say, “No, not really,” and as a witness I will call upon Jesus of Nazareth, who once said, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone” (Mk 10:18, RSV).
If we were naturally good, we would not have needed God to go to the trouble of spelling out to Moses that, no, we can’t just abandon our parents when they get old and feeble; we can’t just take what we want; we can’t kill whom we please and have indiscriminate sex all day long. As obvious as those prohibitions sound to us now, we needed to be told not to do those things — because otherwise we would.
So, we’re not “basically good,” but Jesus tells us how we can become good, and it boils down to two things: Love God with your whole heart and spirit, and then love the person who is before you at any given moment. The first is seed for the second; if you’re really doing the first, the second comes naturally. It is the foundation upon which our authentic goodness is built.
But if we are going to try to become truly good persons, we need to identify and then detach from the faults and sins that we so readily give into, and thus keep us always playing defense.
What we’re going to do in this book is identify 13 “little sins” — twelve would have been more biblical, but I couldn’t stop myself — that are surprisingly more important to our spiritual and material well-being, and more detrimental to our “basic goodness” than we realize. We will name the sin, flesh it out with the reality of our own experiences, and then take a look at what Scripture, the saints, and (sometimes) the Catechism of the Catholic Church have to say about it. Finally, to close each chapter, we will look for some practical solutions — ways and means by which we can begin to break out of the small habitual sins that keep us stuck defending our minimal goodness. And then we’ll pray together toward that end.
When I voiced my first objection to taking on this book, it was because I immediately recognized that no one needed it more than I. I anticipate a terrifying bit of self-discovery for me, as I write it. Hopefully, it won’t be quite so scary for you to read.
As we begin this journey, though, in your charity, please offer up a small prayer for me.
— Elizabeth Scalia
Feast of the Annunciation, 2015
Chapter One
Procrastination
Never put off till tomorrow what may be done day after tomorrow just as well. — Mark Twain
I am such a champion procrastinator that this book was pitched to me about two years ago. It took me a year to sign the contract. Did you notice the date at the end of my introduction? As I write this, I am contractually bound to deliver this manuscript in about four weeks, and yes, I only just started it this morning.
It’s all outlined and in my head, you see, but typing it out is such a drag.
If you were a nice person, wanting to encourage me and validate my life choices, you might respond, “So, you’re a procrastinator. So what? We’re all a little like that! It doesn’t make you a bad person! It’s not as if you’re hurting anyone!”
Well, I’m not so sure about that. The editor who suggested I write it has been forced to go into editorial meetings where he undoubtedly endured the repeated inquiry, “And how is that Scalia book coming?” I imagine him raising his hands to heaven and saying, “I don’t know what her problem is, but she seems like a good person and people tell me she’ll deliver. But no, I haven’t heard from her.”
Already my “little” sin of putting something off has made life difficult for someone other than myself. Editors are waiting; schedulers and designers are waiting. My bank account is waiting.
I can hear you thinking, “But this is not a sin; it’s just an inconvenience. It’s maybe thoughtless, but you’re not, like … evil.”
Thank you for saying I’m not evil. There is no “maybe” about my thoughtless inconveniencing of others, though, and yes, my procrastination is in fact a “little sin” because it is a by-product of a bigger sin, and a deadly one: sloth, which the poet Horace called a “wicked siren.”
Procrastination is a refusal to engage in the world that is before you. It is an RSVP of “no” to the big and small invitations life is continually offering us. It is also a show of ingratitude toward the gifts and talents that are the source of so many of those (actually flattering) invitations:
• “You want me to write a book? Oh, okay, I’ll sign the contract, but really, blogging is so much faster and less structured, so I’ll do that for a year, until I really have to think about the deadline.”
• “Yes, of course I am still bringing that dessert you love to your dinner, tonight. I just have to go shopping for those ingredients that aren’t always easy to find, and it needs six hours to set so … I’ll try to get to that this afternoon.”
• “You want me to volunteer to work with the scouts because you’re shorthanded and you see that my kids are fairly well functioning? It just means two hours a week and maybe a little prep? Can I get back to you on that? How about next September?”
The life we are given — the only one that you or I will get — is ordered and sustained on the Almighty Affirmation of the Creator. The ever-expanding universe exists and grows through the force of one all-encompassing and wholly intentional idea of YES. “Let there be life” and then bang! — or a more slowly evolving baaaang! Everything came to be, including you and me.
By your very creation, you and the giftedness that has been bestowed upon you (because we all get at least one gift) have been invited to be a part of the ongoing world: to engage, to grow, to create, to explore; to take everything that comes your way — the good, the less-good, even the mundane — then filter it through your strengths, and share what you’ve gleaned from it all, with the people around you.
The procrastinator looks at the daily invitation to engage and says, “Mmnnyeah, no” or “I have a thing; now’s not a good time” or “Monday. I’ll start that on Monday.”
“Your first words were not ‘Mama’ and ‘Dada,’” my husband has said to me. “Your parents wanted to believe you were addressing them, but you were actually saying ‘Mañana, baby,’ because with you it’s always ‘mañana.’”
He might be right. Mañana is just a way of saying no until circumstances absolutely force you to say yes. And that’s a tepid sort of response to an invitation from God, isn’t it? It might even be called “cold.”
Is it a sin to say no to God? I’m writing this on the feast of the Annunciation — a day commemorating the visit of the archangel Gabriel, who appeared to the young virgin, Mary, and told her that God’s plan for her, were she amenable, was to put her at risk to doubt, ridicule, possible death-by-stoning, and a lifetime of things she would never fully understand:
In the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a town of Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man named Joseph, of the house of David, and the virgin’s name was Mary. And coming to her, he said, “Hail, favored one! The Lord is with you.” But she was greatly troubled at what was said and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. Then the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name him Jesus. He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give him the throne of David his father, and he will rule over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” But Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I have no relations with a man?” And the angel said to her in reply, “The holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God….” Mary said, “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word.” Then the angel