Introduction

With Part 59 in mind, you are now in a position to better appreciate a quotation we came across earlier in Part 41 about the internal anarchy we’re up against, about the inclined plane we’re on in our pursuit for greater manliness.

Short Exercise 60

  1. The quotation in Part 41 was from James Terry White – an American publisher and poet. For ease of reference, I’ve included it below as the annex to today’s post.
  2. Study it…  Slowly…
  3. Study also the anecdote Jesus tells as recorded in the Gospel of Matthew 25:14-26.

Commentary

With Part 59 clear in our minds, I hope you now better understand why failure to put in effort in the growth or formation of the body, the mind or the soul is not just idleness, but even evil.  Failure to cultivate these three areas doesn’t just lead to evil, it is evil itself. The failure could be due to external factors like a poor upbringing, poor education, lack of opportunity…  For the specific audience of this Guide however, it is more of:

  1. culpable ignorance: something you should know, but you don’t, and it’s your fault you don’t know;
  2. culpable laziness: you have the opportunity to, but you don’t, and it’s your fault you don’t;
  3. culpable indifference: will speak about this one next time.

Our famous Carpenter in the passage from Matthew referred to above, dared call that last servant “wicked” and “lazy”.  Think about it.  Wicked and lazy.  “Lazy” makes perfect sense!  The guy did nothing with the talent he’d been entrusted with (not given. Entrusted)!  Nothing.  But to be fair, he didn’t lose it either: he didn’t improve or invest in it, but at least he didn’t lose it.  He was a decent guy.  Like you. Like me.  Decent.  At least so we think…  But not Christ.  Christ calls him “wicked”.  You know what another word for “wicked” is?  Evil. Christ called this last servant lazy and evil.  And the only reason I could figure why Christ would call him evil is because he was lazy. Laziness, idleness, culpable ignorance, indifference are evil.  We have to at least struggle to progressively grow in those three fronts, using whatever means are available to us!

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