 7 Deadly Sins & 7 Life Giving Virtures "Their God is their stomach." Gluttony signifies an
excess in eating or drinking and is often applied metaphorically to any
area that is in excess. In the context of the deadly sin of
gluttony, moderation is always absent. Compulsive eating
disorders, from overeating to bulimia, reflects a crippling obsession
that affects millions of Americans each year. Anorexia, the loss
or suppression of appetite, fixates excessively on not eating and
reflects the excess attention to one's body. Each of these eating
disorders are not so much about food as they are about self-image,
self-love, and relationships. The sin becomes a serious sickness
that affects all aspects of a person's life, body, soul, and
psyche. While many of these disorders need professional
intervention due to the severe interaction with the physical problems,
we recognize the intense overeating life-styles of countless others who
fixate on the next meal, who know all the restaurants in town and who
feast regularly on fine foods and whose days revolve around their
preoccupation with food. Drinking alcohol and
using mood-altering chemicals belong within the sin of gluttony.
Drunkenness means excessive use of a mood altering chemical so that
one's mind is not sober, capable of rational thought, a surrendering of
body, soul, and psyche to the influence of a drug, alcohol or a host of
other mood-altering drugs. As with food, many gluttons who use
alcohol or drugs become physically and psychologically addicted and
loss all control of choosing whether they will stop or not. They
fall into deep bondage and cannot get free. So often the serious
nature of gluttony is dismissed. People love to see how close they can
cozy up to the sin, experiencing overeating, drunkenness, tempting
themselves to the edge of bondage without getting caught only to find
themselves slipping without their knowledge over the edge, falling into
bondage, all the while denying they are doing so, rationalizing and
justifying the next binge because it feels so good. (Tomorrow we will examine temperance.) -thoughts taken from Choosing Virtue in a Changing World: A New Look at the Seven Deadly Sins Please Email Us With Any Comments or Feedback At ©2005 CopperCountry.com,Inc. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. |
