Evil Is Laziness

In writing this post, I am making the assumption that most of you who visit this blog have made the choice to deliberately investigate your life and are open to going as deep as possible to know yourself.  I will also assume that you believe that it is possible to know yourself as your Creator knows you much the Way Paul described in 1 Corinthians 13:11-13.  That being said I am going to feel free to “step on a few toes” as they used to say in church.  Now keep in mind that stepping on toes is not the same as pointing fingers.  If I were pointing fingers, that means I could stand away from others and say, “look at you”.  But if I’m stepping on your toes, that means I’m standing right there with you.

This ministry is not about judgment or putting people down.  That stuff has gone on for too long and it stops here.  The Roofless Church is about sharing the benefits of what we learn on this walk of Life.  Some of what is said here might not be for everyone, but everyone is welcome.  We blew the roof off because this is a place of freedom. I don’t believe the Holy Spirit can fit in any box we can conceive of so I don’t even try.  All I know is that we are surrounded by Love and distractions and a lot of times the distractions get the best of us.  So in Love, I am hoping that this blog will somehow give to others what it gives to me in writing it–permission to see more of the Love.

As you’ll notice, it has been more than two weeks since my last posting.  It is fitting given the title of this post is Evil Is Laziness.  If you’re paying attention, you might think that it sounds a little backward.  You may have thought I should have said, “Laziness is Evil.”  However, as M. Scott Peck noted in his books, The Road Less Traveled and People of the Lie, Evil is no less than the highest form of laziness.  Now when we say laziness, we are not talking about people who sit around doing nothing.  We all know Hitler did a lot of “work” when he was around.  The laziness I am talking about is the laziness that:

• Keeps us from doing the most loving thing in a situation because it would be too much work
• Prevents us from hearing another person’s point of view in a discussion
• Causes us to see where everyone else needs to change but us
• Allows us to use prejudices to gauge people rather than getting to know them for who they are
• Distracts us from becoming a more loving person because we don’t want to put in the work to change
• Makes us work so hard to “fake” being strong because we are too lazy to find true inner strength
• Convinces us that it is okay to trick others into doing what we want them to do for our sole benefit

There’s so much more that can be added to this list, but I’m sure you get the picture.  Evil is laziness!  This isn’t a judgment, it is a fact–a fact we don’t want to face in life because it levels the playing field.  Seeing evil for what it really is can very easily turn your world upside down.  People you thought were “good” may not look so “good” anymore and vice versa.  You may find that some people that you might not like are doing a lot more true good than you ever thought.  Then there’s the thought that’s even harder to face, we might not look so good to ourselves.  As I mentioned, it took me extra long to write this blog.  Why do you think that was? In some ways it was laziness.  In order to write this, I have to look at myself.  Also, there were moments when I was concerned about offending people or just didn’t want to think about how frequently we run into subtle forms of evil.

Now don’t take this as bad news.  Please don’t use this to point fingers at yourself or others.  This isn’t why I am sharing this.  I am sharing this because I believe that in doing so, we can become more empowered in our daily lives.  If you think about it, most of us have never been taught anything about evil except to fear it.  And yet, we are told to go out into the world and try to do good.  But how can we without a proper sense of what doing true good is?  In 1 John 4:18 it says, “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love.”  So I ask you, how can we do good by fearing evil?  The truth is we absolutely can’t.  We must face evil for what it is.  Nothing but pure unadulterated laziness!

Evil wins when we are tricked into believing it is something so much more devastating than laziness.  As Hitler showed, Evil has a big marketing budget and it uses it to create illusions that keep us from seeing it for what it really is.  It’s constantly “working” to show us where our enemies are so we can stay distracted. It does its greatest harm when we believe we can wipe it out by putting the blame on others.  But the Truth is, if we want to do good in this world, we have to overcome our own internal laziness.  The only way we can do that is to be able to call ourselves out on it.  Believe me, it is not as bad as it seems.  After a while it just starts getting funny.  I laugh at myself daily.  I can do that because I am not a victim.  I know that I empowered to choose whether I will go toward Love by working on myself or do nothing by blaming others and being lazy.  Today I chose Love.

If you’re local to Boulder, CO and you’re looking for a way to overcome what I just mention join us for a mindfulness meditation on dismantling racist constructs. All of the information is below.