When my husband and I were first married, we lived in a small apartment. It was old and quite run-down, but to us, its most noteworthy disadvantage was the size of the closets. They were barely deep enough for a single pair of shoes and about an eighth of the size of any closet in any place we had lived previously. Our workout clothes alone filled one of them. “What did the people who built that house ever do with all their clothes?” we wondered. Then I recalled my mother telling me that when she grew up, she had two dresses to her name—one for school and one for church on Sunday. That would have fit in our closet with room to spare! While our current house doesn’t have a walk-in closet, it does have double closets in every room and a cedar closet in the hallway. They are all full.
Glittering Vices: A New Look at the Seven Deadly Sins and Their Remedies
Rebecca Konyndyk DeYoung
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Blaise Pascal agreed; he predicted that the best way to make people truly miserable would be to take away all their diversions, whether at work or through recreation: “Without [diversions] we should be in a state of weariness, and this weariness would spur us to seek a more solid means of escaping from it. But diversion amuses us, and leads us unconsciously to death.”
Glittering Vices: A New Look at the Seven Deadly Sins and Their Remedies
Rebecca Konyndyk DeYoung -
Often, with enough time off, our thirst to be well known for certain superficial qualities dies down or fades away, we discover how easily and happily we can enjoy life without constantly thinking about refashioning our image, and it becomes easier to recognize the emptiness and superficiality of most of the goods vainglory inclines us to pursue.
Glittering Vices: A New Look at the Seven Deadly Sins and Their Remedies
Rebecca Konyndyk DeYoung -
We can start small, trying to take the spotlight off ourselves. Would it be difficult, for a single day, to let our actions speak for themselves, without defending ourselves when we suspect others are being critical? How hard would it be not to look in the mirror at all, or store windows, or reflections, and to refrain from asking others about our appearance? Could we listen to others, while refraining from conversation about ourselves—without telling stories about ourselves, recounting our own version of events, or offering an account of our own feelings? Reflecting when the day is over can reveal how much mental effort and conversation and activity we devote daily to enhancing our image in the eyes of others or calling attention to ourselves to make others approve of us. Are we engaging in activities from a desire to win recognition and renown or because we think they are genuinely important and worthwhile in themselves?
Glittering Vices: A New Look at the Seven Deadly Sins and Their Remedies
Rebecca Konyndyk DeYoung -
Do not sell your labours for people’s esteem, nor hand over the future glory for the sake of paltry fame, for human esteem settles in the dust (cf. Ps. 7: 6) and its reputation is extinguished on earth, but the glory of virtue abides for eternity.
—Evagrius of PontusGlittering Vices: A New Look at the Seven Deadly Sins and Their Remedies
Rebecca Konyndyk DeYoung -
Unlike the vainglorious, however, the ambitious seek honor not from just anyone, but rather from those with the requisite taste or expertise. In pride, we desire to be genuinely superior; in ambition, we want to be respected by “the right people.”
Glittering Vices: A New Look at the Seven Deadly Sins and Their Remedies
Rebecca Konyndyk DeYoung
SO GOOD QUOTES 