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The Sin of Greed or Avarice

Greed or Avarice

Forms of Greed/Avarice

Brian is a stockbroker. Since his early twenties, his chief goal has been to attain complete financial independence by the time he is forty. This is not a search for security—Brian wants wealth as an achievement in itself. A personal net worth in the millions will make him a man of substance, a man of recognized standing and achievement . . .

To that end he is disciplined: tough but discreet, careful about his dealings with inside tips or with the IRS, meticulous in research and preparation, quick and ruthless in execution. As a result he has made a great deal of money for other people, and is on the verge of making at least as much for himself . . .

He loves the thought of the money, growing, potent, to be handled like a spirited horse. It would not be fair to say that money is his whole life. He can take vacations at times. He enjoys his children when he sees them.

His divorce was a major setback because of the division of assets that followed, but nothing distracts him for long from his passion. He does not often think of death, but he means his estate to be his memorial.

—William S. Stafford

Linda’s bumper sticker says it all: “Born to Shop!” Six days she labors and does her work, but on the sabbath day she heads for the shopping mall. Once within the gates, Linda walks along the polished marble floors, entranced. Store after store, level upon level open up: windows shine and beckon. Rainbows of knives, silken lingerie folding in softer light, bookshops and theaters and little ethnic food counters stretch and turn out of sight. All thought of her old life outside—tough job, difficult relationships—drops away. She walks, wanting . . . wanting . . .

Once, a few years ago, Linda’s mother was short of cash and made her wear a year-old dress to a big party. She had been dizzy and sick. All that night she had sat in her old clothes, empty of the beauty her friends caught from their fresh silk. Never again that hollow, dark, ugly feeling! She wants the best for herself . . .

If she is feeling low or out of sorts, it is the mall that heals. There are no clocks there, no sun by day or moon by night, for the mall is lit by the glory of the merchandise. The marble pavement and glittering lights pull Linda on, with miles of radiant things to see, to want, to have, to be.

—William S. Stafford

It was left for the present age to endow Covetousness with glamour on a big scale, and to give it a title which it could carry like a flag. It occurred to somebody to call it Enterprise. From the moment of that happy inspiration, Covetousness has gone forward and never looked back. . .

It has become a swaggering, swashbuckling, piratical sin, going about with its hat cocked over its eye, and with pistols tucked into the tops of its jack-boots . . .

It looks so jolly and jovial, and has such a twinkle in its cunning eye, that nobody can believe that its heart is as cold and calculating as ever . . .

Besides, where is its heart? Covetousness is not incarnated in individual people, but in business corporations, joint stock companies, amalgamations, trusts, which have neither bodies to be kicked, nor souls to be damned—nor hearts to be appealed to, either: It is very difficult to fast on anybody the responsibility for the things that are done with money . . .

Of course, if Covetousness miscalculates and some big financier comes crashing down, bringing all the small speculators down with him, we wag self-righteous heads and feel that we see clearly where the fault lies. But we do not punish the fraudulent businessman for his frauds, but for his failure.

—Dorothy L. Sayers

Dante’s Purgation of Greed/Avarice

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The Sin of Gluttony

Gluttony

Forms of Gluttony

Jim is a respectable and decent government official. He has only one secret vice: little frosted chocolate cakes. Every day he buys four packages of them, eight little cakes in all, about twenty-four bites of pleasure for one working day . . .

Each bite is a little burst of reward. Of course the joggers in his office would not approve; they are already contemptuous about his plump “self-presentation.” . . .

So he keeps the little cakes in a bottom drawer of his desk, and eats them only when no one is around. His doctor is not very pleased with his weight, but who really cares? What harm is he doing?

—William S. Stafford

For 14 years, Peggy was a heavy drinker. She never thought of herself as an alcoholic, because her drinking and occasional prescription drug abuse occurred within the confines of the upper middle class home where she lived with her husband and three young children.

She says, “I had a bunch of cars, my kids were in private school, I looked all right. Problem was, I was dying.” . . .

For a long time, it was easy for Peggy to deny she had an addiction. She never drank in the morning or at lunch. Her kids never came home from school to find her drunk. Despite a daily hangover, she would get out of bed each morning, get her children off to school, participate in community activities, keep lunch dates with friends, and shop at the supermarket. “I looked like a normal house wife. I wasn’t bleary-eyed, my teeth were fine, my clothes were fine.” . . .

She tried to quit, but her vows of abstinence were always short-lived. “It’s amazing: You wake up every single day and say, ‘That’s it, I'm not going to drink anymore.’” But by four o'clock she knew she would have to take a drink that night.

“Then I’d say, ‘Well, I’m going to stop at two, or stop at three,’” she says. “I went to Mass every morning and I would pray that I could stop at three drinks, which in fact I did, but they were in vats. The glasses got bigger and bigger.” . . .

Peggy says she was “falling apart” when she started recovery. Having to admit publicly that she was an alcoholic was one of the most difficult things she had to face. “I knew I was a drunk. I didn’t want anyone in the world to know I was a drunk,” she says. “I wanted to die. I remember thinking at points, ‘I’m just going to raise these children, and then I’ll die.’”

She believes that one of the first steps to accepting the disease of addiction is acknowledging that the drug has taken control of one’s life: “Once you admit, ‘I’m completely powerless over this, it’s got me beaten, my life is ruined,’ then you have a chance.”

—Anonymous

Dante’s Purgation of Gluttony

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