Category: seven deadly sins

The Darkness of the World.

The world is messed up.

If you are paying even the tiniest bit of attention to what’s going on in the world, you might just finally realize that this world is more evil than you would ever imagine, and with vastly complicit help not only from political leaders, but also from the average populace.

I’m sometimes surprised at how jaded I’ve become.  As a young idealist way back in the old days, I had all the optimistic and positive outlooks anyone could have.  That’s saying a lot.  Last year, with a new President in office, I barely delved deep into the current events.  I had it in my mind that he was the same as he was in his first term, so what was there to worry about?  This year began just as pacific for me, until February 28 with the war, and since then, well, you know how nutty everything has become.  Or has it?

My best friend mentioned to me that he noticed that this President wasn’t the same, and maybe so since last fall.  That’s when I took a better look and realized he was on to something.  Yes, he certainly is not the guy we voted for.  We were all duped.

People in general have changed, and vastly so since 2020.  It seems that people have such ease in lying right to your face.  They’re ruder.  They even seem to be lazier.  None of it is good.

The Church isn’t the Church I grew up in.  It’s now the Synodal Church.  The true Roman Catholic Church exists, but one must diligently look for it in other places.  I question the current Pope in the form of Robert Prevost, because what he teaches is, well, all over the place with little consistency for Roman Catholicism.

Nevertheless, I think, the longer a person is on this Earth and seriously pays attention to the idiocy that seems to accelerate by the hour, just about anyone could get pretty jaded.  That’s why I am working towards being in the world, but not OF this world.  It’s sometimes a struggle, because I have it in my head that I need to know what’s going on in the world now, for instance, when the bomb is going to be dropped.  Conversely, isn’t it better to not know, and just be spiritually ready for it exploding at any minute?  Yeah, probably.

The moral disorder in our world is far more profound than the everyday vapid scandals people argue about.  It extends beyond routine political dishonesty and the familiar patterns of institutional failures.  What we are now being confronted with instead are deeper, more sinister forms of corruption; systems of exploitation and abuse that flourish in secrecy and rely on the complacency of the very structures meant to safeguard the vulnerable.  These forces are not isolated or accidental; they are organized, persistent, and woven through the generations from the beginning of time.  Their influence reaches into the institutions that shape public life: government, law, media, entertainment, finance, sports, religious establishments, et al.  This is perhaps why meaningful accountability rarely materializes.  The problem is not that the system has malfunctioned; the problem is that the system, as it currently operates, protects the very darkness it should be exposing.  The world is operating exactly how it’s supposed to, with all the evil engrained in it.

Drain the swamp?  Catchy little slogan, that is.  Instead of draining, the loudest mouths just went ahead and joined the swamp.  Why not?  It’s profitable, and in so many ways, too.

It is naïve to think that the ordinary general public will rise to meet these challenges.  Sure, it’s a nice thought that people will wake up and fight for a successful end to malevolence, but in reality, most people, overwhelmed by the pace of modern life and the cozy comfort of laziness and apathy, have settled into becoming passive observers rather than active participants.  Assuredly, outrage flares briefly online with an angry post typed from behind the keyboard, a click of a shared headline, a momentary surge of indignation, but only to retreat into familiar routines.  But when the moment any public criticism touches celebrities or political figures, the reaction is even more predictable: people defend the evil and/or the evil doer or just shut down and move on to something insipid and vapid, which is usually their comfort zone.  Their attachment to public figures functions as modern idolatry, a sick and macabre loyalty that overrides discernment and sensibility.  Many people will defend entertainers, influencers, government notables, popes and televangelists, and other public personalities despite recurring scandals, unanswered questions, weird speeches from pulpits, and patterns of troubling associations.  For them to confront those realities would require them to acknowledge that their long‑held assumptions were misplaced, that trust was given too freely, and that the narratives shaping their lives were not as benevolent as they believed.  For many, that admission is too costly; therefore, comfort becomes preferable to clarity, and distraction becomes easier than responsibility.

There is also a deeper layer of wrongdoing that most people cannot bear to confront.  Beneath the surface of public life exist networks, institutions, and hidden spaces where exploitation thrives, albeit hidden.  These are not the sensationalized fantasies people dismiss, but the quieter, more pervasive forms of abuse and corruption that flourish when shielded from scrutiny.  The very idea of such concealed systems unsettles people, not only because of the moral horror they imply, but because acknowledging them would require reconsidering the trust they place in the social structure.  This is why so few bother to investigate further.  Once one begins to see the depth of institutional rot and mold, it becomes impossible to return to the comfort of ignorance; yet many people would rather stay in their pretty little cocoons and not be bothered.  Peel me another grape, Daphne.

Is the present moment an actual “awakening?”  That’s hard to say, but even if that is true, it is an uneven one.  Most people struggle to sustain attention in a world engineered for constant distraction.  A new crisis, a new headline, a new spectacle appears, and public focus instantly resets.  The duplicitous news stories change faster than the weather in Chicago.  Faster, faster Pussycat, whip up the chaos!  Whip it up good!   Chaos and confusion, to and fro.

Outrage becomes episodic rather than transformative.  The average citizen does not demand accountability, structural reform, or transparency; instead, they drift back into the familiar rhythms of daily life.  They continue to support the very systems they criticize, through consumption, through compliance, through lazy habits.  In this sense, the problem is not merely institutional corruption but a culture that has grown accustomed to passivity, comfort, and distraction, even in the face of profound moral failure.

The individuals who perpetuate profound harm are not merely “troubled;” they embody a level of moral corruption that defies explanation.  Their actions reveal a conscience that has been systematically eroded, a capacity for empathy that appears extinguished.  Yet, they move through public life with practiced ease— smiling for cameras, delivering speeches, presenting themselves as benefactors, all the while concealing the ethical void that enables their behavior.  This dissonance between public image and private reality is precisely what allows such corruption to persist.

Yet these systems endure not only because of those who exploit them, but because of the collective willingness to look away.  As long as society continues to fund, celebrate, and unquestioningly trust the institutions and figures who benefit from the status quo, little to nothing will ever change.  Evil does not thrive simply because it is powerful; it thrives because good people convince themselves it is safer not to see it.  It’s so easy to play the poor put upon ostrich and bury one’s head in the sand.  The refusal to confront uncomfortable truths becomes, in effect, a form of approval and permission.

Cognitive dissonance is real, but far more often, it’s more of the slow erosion caused by apathy, constant confusion, and the relentless flood of information, outrage, and accusation.  When every voice demands attention and every headline contradicts the last, people slip into a kind of mental fog — not because they’re incapable of thinking, but because they’re exhausted by the effort and they would rather take the easy way.  And in that dazed state, many retreat to what feels familiar.  They worship their idols.  They cling to the idols that reflect their preferred illusions, the figures who reinforce their false beliefs and offer the comfort of never having to question anything at all.

The world is very messed up.

 

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The Age of Adonis (Part 3).

Part 3 of 3:  The Middle Distance.

There is a peculiar vantage point one gains simply by living in close proximity to other human beings.  Not close enough to know their secrets, but close enough to witness their habits; their triumphs, their peculiarities, their kindness, their small vanities, their authenticity, and quieter graces.  It is the view from the middle distance, where comedy and clarity often arrive hand‑in‑hand.

From this vantage point, I have watched our neighborhood Adonis swell into his mythic proportions, strutting through the hallways and on the neighborhood sidewalks like a man auditioning for a protein‑powder commercial.  His life is lived in bold, glossy strokes of sweat, swagger, and spectacle.  He found the easy way in life to make a dollar, becoming a grifter front and center on the unholy stage of a community fellowship group, sermonizing under the guise of praises and blessings peppered within his readings of scripture verses found in a distorted Bible.  He is the sort of person who seems to believe that if he flexes hard enough – whether it is flexing by quoting scripture or flexing muscles – the world will mistake it for virtue.  At the same time, he soaks in the adulation and attention as one would with water from the River Jordan.

And then, from the same vantage point, I have watched the quiet ones; the door‑holders, the plant‑waterers, the hallway‑softeners moving through the building with a gentleness that neither asks nor demands anything in return.  Their lives are lived in gentle lowercase letters, steady and unadorned.  They are not trying to be noticed, which is precisely why they are.

Modern life, for all its noise, has a way of revealing character in the smallest of moments.  The man who performs goodness loudly often performs it only for the applause and attention.  The man who waters the begonias when no one is looking is not performing at all.  He is simply and unobtrusively being who he is.

Discernment, I’ve learned, is not about judging people harshly.  It’s about seeing clearly and recognizing the difference between shine and substance, between the man who builds his body like an Old Testament golden monument and the neighbor who quietly builds a life of decency.  Humility, too, is not a grand gesture.  It is the quiet refusal to make oneself the center of every hallway and fellowship stage.  To learn what not to become is one of the great lessons of life.

And what about the comedy of modernity?  It’s everywhere.  It’s in the man who cannot lower his arms because his torso has become a personal billboard.  It’s in the fluorescent lights catching a thousand sequins on Cowgirl Betty’s jacket in the middle of a sunny day.  It’s in the way we all, at one point or another, take ourselves far too seriously.

But the deeper comedy is the one that makes you smile long after the moment has passed.  It is this: the people who most want to be admired rarely are, and the people who never think about admiration often end up holding the whole place together.

In the middle distance, the truth becomes clear.  Strength is not measured in inches of bicep or the girth of one’s chest.  Beauty is not measured in lumens of sparkle.  Virtue, the real kind, is almost always quiet enough to miss if you’re not paying attention.

But once you see it, you start noticing it everywhere.

This is the final chapter of three parts.

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The Age of Adonis (Part 1)

Part 1 of 3:  Reflections on Vanity, Virtue, and the Modern Parade

He was the sort of man who made a living preaching The Word while somehow managing to sidestep most of its demands.  You could see it in the way he carried himself; earnest on the surface, but with a hollowness underneath, like a sermon missing its last page.

When I first met him, he was almost aggressively unremarkable: small, soft around the middle, a crew cut that looked like it had been administered by someone in a hurry, and some type of cologne that would gag a maggot.  He told me he had left the Church and was now preaching at a non‑denominational fellowship down the road.  He quoted Scripture with the enthusiasm of someone who had just discovered the footnotes and wanted everyone to know and be impressed.  Truthfully, it felt less like devotion and more like a performance of mental gymnastics meant to impress.  They didn’t.

In our brief conversations, he mentioned he was a former drug user, now clean, and that he was “still learning” and had “a long way to go” in understanding The Word.  That part, at least, I believed.

But then something shifted.

Slowly, his upper body began to expand.  It was first subtly, then alarmingly.  I would see him at the neighborhood gym, or returning from it, sweat pouring off him in rivulets that perfumed the condominium hallways with a scent that could only be described as fusty.  Other days, I’d spot him leaving Atomic Health Club in town, towels slung over his shoulder, his wet T‑shirt clinging to him like a second skin.  He would leap into his sports car with the flourish of a man starring in his own music video and drive off like a bolt out of the blue.

By summer, the transformation seemed complete.  One afternoon, he and his family walked down the hallway on their way to the swimming pool. “Walked” is generous—he lumbered, unable to lower his arms fully because his torso had grown to mythic proportions.  He wore only baggy shorts (I cannot call them trunks), his thick thighs rubbing together and his calves looking like chicken legs.  It looked like it hurt him to move his legs, and for that moment I felt sorry for him.  His pre‑tween daughter wore a bikini so revealing it made me blink twice in embarrassment.  His wife and son, ironically, were dressed modestly befitting a church picnic.

His upper body had become enormous, his thighs still pronounced, his calves still comically thin.  He reminded me of a Greek statue carved by an artist who ran out of marble halfway through.  It was unsettling, the kind of physique that makes you instinctively step aside in case it topples or explodes.

He strutted through the building with the air of a man fishing for admiration, or perhaps for something more.  Someone once told me that people who leave one addiction often find another to replace the high.  Maybe this was that; maybe it wasn’t.  I’m not his confessor; I can only pray for him.

What I do know is this: the greater his muscles grew, the quieter his preaching rang.  There was a disconnect between the man he proclaimed himself to be and the man he was becoming, between the humility of the Gospel and the vanity of the mirror.

And perhaps that is the real caution of the Age of Adonis: when the body becomes the altar, the soul is left without a place to kneel and worship the one true God.

Part 2 will be published on April 16, 2026.

 

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The Age of Performed Identity.

How much of our lives have we spent trying to be something—or someone—we’re not?  It is one thing to pursue growth, to refine our character, and to enrich our inner life, yet it is quite another to adopt a false identity for the sake of impressing others, whether for money, status, or the fleeting approval of strangers, family, and acquaintances.

Lately, it seems that the art of pretending has become a widespread habit, a kind of cultural contagion.  Over the past decade especially, I’ve watched this phenomenon snowball.  It has become easier and fiendishly tempting to put on a polished façade while abandoning genuineness, humility, and empathy.  Social media, with its curated illusions and endless opportunities for self‑promotion and keyboard commandos, has been the chief purveyor of these false faces.

And how easy it is.

In a world moving at swift speed, the pressure to perform seems to be ceaseless.  Some people feel compelled to reinvent themselves for every audience, to appear more educated, more virtuous, more high class, more enlightened than they truly are.  Some people, unfortunately, strain to become the moral authority in every conversation, to project wisdom they have not earned, and to cloak their insecurity in a thin veil of false humility.  Some people invent and re-invent their live story continuously.

It must be exhausting.  From my vantage point, watching someone puff himself up by preaching from an imaginary pulpit, presenting himself as all‑knowing while sprinkling in counterfeit modesty, or looking down their nose at others, is a disheartening sight.  There is nothing admirable in self‑inflation or pretend self-deflation.  It does not elevate a person; it exposes him.  False humility serves only the ego.  It leaves no room to serve God, despite all their claims of “thanking God everyday” for such-and-such.  It comes across Pharisee-like when you know their true history and that they are putting on a public show.

Putting on an act for selfish gain is, at its core, a fabrication of the truth.  Duplicity demands constant maintenance, and after a while, there is so much maintenance that fabrication becomes sloppier and sloppier.  One must remember every false detail with perfect precision just to keep the fiction intact, and that’s the hard labor one has to do for a hollow reward in the prison of their mind’s fantasy.

It is far better to remember that the one thing you can do better than anyone else is to be yourself.  Of course, one could make the argument that being phony for some people is “being themselves.  Yet there is less work and stress to admit one’s true self and not make up stories to impress an audience.  Or in one case, I have seen one person who has shared his childhood as first “middle class,” then defined it as “not quite middle class,” to the sad Dickensian tale of “being poor.”  Is that the “fake it until you make it” mantra at work, or the pretend “rags to riches” story?  I won’t bother to hazard a guess.  All I can say is I have little regard for counterfeits.

The world does not need more people parroting platitudes or mimicking the latest persona.  It needs more of the original, the sincere, the unvarnished.  Pretending to be someone else is not only dishonest because it is truly a quiet betrayal of your own dignity.

As we step into another day, we should do so with sober eyes and clear hearts.  Remember who you really are beneath the noise and the pressure, and do not compromise that reality.  Be honest, be considerate, and be grounded in your principles.  Respect yourself and extend that respect to others.

 

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Leaving the Secular Carousel.

A Reflection on the Gradual Reordering of My Life

Over these many, many years as I have been becoming more and more serious about my Catholic faith, I have noticed a remarkable change in myself—one that has unfolded slowly, almost imperceptibly at first, but unmistakably over the last fifteen years or so.  In this article, I write about how the secular world has been shrinking in my life, not out of disdain for the people in it, but because its offerings no longer nourish me.  I have been moving away from many secular things, both by deliberate choice and by the quiet providence of circumstance.  What once occupied my time, my attention, even my imagination, now feels strangely distant, as though it belonged to someone else’s life.

In my youth, I wasn’t a fan of modern music, particularly rock and roll.  But in my sophomore year, one morning while getting ready for school, I tuned into the local rock radio station to find out what the current music fad was all about.  My friends were into that music, and I didn’t want to be left out of conversations.  It felt harmless enough—just a way to fit in, to understand what everyone else seemed to enjoy.

Over the years, my taste in music expanded to that genre, though it never went into grunge or the harsher styles that followed.  But now, even that earlier music has become distasteful to me. The beat and melody might still be attractive, but the lyrics—so often vulgar, suggestive, or simply empty—are sickening.  That’s what gets people hooked: catchy rhythms and memorable musical notes.  The lyrics are an afterthought, or worse, a poison pill wrapped in sugar. I find myself wondering why I ever tolerated it, let alone enjoyed it.

The same goes for television programs.  I didn’t grow up in a house where the television was constantly on.  Until age sixteen or so, television was rare—a special thing to watch, almost an event.  But then something shifted, and before long meaningless programs like Happy Days, Laverne and Shirley, Three’s Company, WKRP, and various variety shows were playing regularly in our home.  Looking back, I am appalled that I allowed myself to waste time on such trivia: scantily clad people, taking God’s name in vain, sexual innuendo, name-calling, yelling, and cheap, vulgar laughs.  I don’t even find those programs funny or edifying now.  The detective and cop shows might have been tolerable—good guys catching bad guys—but even those were repetitive, predictable, and shallow.  And for what?  To kill time in the evening?  Why did I watch that garbage when I could have been reading good books, learning something worthwhile, or helping around the house?

Unfortunately, I was in a marriage once many moons ago where the television dominated the household the moment he walked through the door.  It stayed on until bedtime, a constant drone that filled every corner of the evening.  And even then, the bedroom television (yes, the senseless bedroom television) often blared until 11:30 PM.  That kind of environment was never for me.  I complained, he questioned why I wouldn’t watch because I’d have to have something to talk about at work in the morning with my co-workers.  I replied that I talked to my co-workers about work, not some stupid television program; that’s what I was paid for— work!  I tried to carve out pockets of quiet, busying myself with anything that felt less corrosive, but the noise was relentless, and the contrast between what I longed for and what surrounded me grew sharper with time.

Now that I have been away from television entirely for a good eighteen years, I don’t miss any part of it.  I couldn’t tell you what the latest shows are, or even if there are any worthwhile.  Yes, I still own a television, and I’ve used it to stream old movies from time to time, but even that has gone by the wayside for Lent this year, and I may not return to it afterward.  I don’t miss it.  I don’t crave it.  Its absence feels like fresh air.

And then there is social media—another thorn I am trying to remove.  It is astonishing how easily it lures, distracts, and scatters the mind. Even when I think I am using it “responsibly,” it has a way of pulling me into trivialities, arguments, or endless scrolling.  It promises connection but often delivers agitation.  It promises information but often makes noise.  It promises community but often fosters comparison and restlessness. I am working slowly but steadily, to loosen its grip.

Over time, these renunciations—vapid music, insipid television, thieving social media—have revealed something deeper than mere preference.  They dull the mind, yes, but more importantly, they crowd the soul.  By tossing them aside, I have begun to see the shape of my interior life gradually reclaimed.  What once felt “normal” now feels foreign, and what once seemed harmless now appears hollow.  I find that the less I cling to the secular world, the more interior freedom I gain.  This is not withdrawal but refinement: a quiet choosing of what leads me toward God and a holy life and away from the emptiness and noise that once filled my days.  In that choice, I am discovering a steadier, simpler, more meaningful, and far happier way to live. I write more, I pray more, I read more, I use my life better.

 

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The Poverty of Perpetual Anger.

There is a particular sadness in watching people who live in a constant state of anger, and I see this quite a lot in my neighborhood, and especially since 2020.  Their anger is not the righteous anger that rises to defend the vulnerable, but the chronic, simmering kind; the kind that becomes a personality, a worldview, a permanent narrowing of the soul.  Some of these people turn ugly and violent when they are cordially greeted by neighbors.  These are people who treat every encounter as a contest, every disagreement as a threat, every difference as a personal insult.  Perhaps they believe they are defending themselves, but in truth they are defending the walls that imprison them.

Anger becomes their only vocabulary.  They speak it fluently, instinctively, even proudly, and peppered heavily with vulgar and filthy words.  But beneath that lies a deep poverty of spirit.  A person who must always be angry and offensive is a person who has forgotten how to be free and kind.

The tragedy is not merely that they harm others—though they do.  The deeper tragedy is what they lose within themselves without realizing it.

  • They lose the ability to be surprised by goodness.
  • They lose the capacity for joy that comes from generosity.
  • They lose the peace that only humility can give.
  • They lose the richness of a larger world than their own reflection.

They trade all of this for the brittle satisfaction of being “right” and boorish, even when that “rightness” isolates them.  They probably do not realize that the fortress they build to keep others out is the same fortress that keeps them in.

My sadness for them is not schmaltzy.  It is not the soft sadness of pity.  It is the sharper sadness that comes from recognizing wasted possibility.  These are people who could be expansive, curious, generous, a positive addition to the neighborhood, but instead they choose the cramped rooms of anger and rejection.  They choose to live in a world too small for any soul.  It is as though they are possessed by demons.

A life fueled by anger cannot lead to peace.  A heart closed to others cannot experience love.  A mind that rejects difference cannot grow.  They may cling to their fury and their narrowness as if these things protect them, but in the end, they protect nothing.  They only ensure that the person holding them remains untouched by the very things that make life worth living.

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The Profit That Destroys.

The question, “For what shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole world and suffer the loss of his soul?” cuts to the heart of a tension that every era rediscovers: the difference between a life that looks impressive and a life that is actually worth living.  We are surrounded by metrics — influence, fame, money, reputation, achievement, status — that promise satisfaction but often deliver only more insatiable hunger.  The question forces us to confront a truth we instinctively know: a person can win by every external measure and still feel hollow inside, a dried-up husk of a person.

Modern culture is skilled at rewarding the wrong things.  It celebrates accumulation, visibility, and speed.  It teaches us to optimize our schedules, polish our image, and chase the next milestone.  None of these pursuits are inherently harmful, but they become dangerous when they eclipse the quieter, more essential work of becoming a whole human being.  A person can spend decades climbing a ladder only to discover it was leaning against the wrong wall.

Losing oneself rarely happens in a dramatic collapse. More often, it happens gradually, when convenience replaces integrity, when ambition overrides relationships, when the greedy pursuit of More! More! More! crowds out the pursuit of meaning.  The world applauds these compromises; our inner life does not.  The cost is subtle but real: a thinning of character, a shrinking of joy, a sense that life is happening faster than we can live it.

To gain the world is easy.  It requires only that we follow the current cultural expectation.  To keep oneself intact is harder.  It demands reflection, boundaries, and the courage to choose depth over display, but only one of these paths leads to a life that feels like one’s own.

In the end, the question remains a challenge to every generation: what good is success if it costs you the very person you were meant to become?  The world offers many rewards, but none of them are worth the loss of yourself and your eternal spirit.

 

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