Write About Now

Years ago I decided selective apathy was key to a happy life. This is a less positive way of stating the boundaries principle—you can’t and shouldn’t let everything affect your emotional equilibrium and you must choose what’s worth the energy.

For instance, a man in my parents’ subdivision complains loudly at HOA meetings about how “the neighborhood is going downhill” but also HANGS DEER CARCASSES FROM HIS TREES in hunting season. My advice (not that they asked) was to skip the meetings altogether, since The Deer Hunter is unlikely to change and life is too short to deal with idiots. (This is an even less positive way to state the principle.)

The problem is this form of self-protection often borders on selfishness. It’s one thing to avoid neighborhood meetings, it’s something else entirely to avoid the neighbors, many of whom need Jesus.

In a recent Leadership Journal article, Pete Scazzero says acedia, the word used to describe the deadly sin of sloth, actually translates to “not caring.” Therefore sloth encompasses not just (or even primarily) physical laziness, but emotional and spiritual apathy.

I thought about this on Saturday as a good friend shared the latest in her ongoing attempts at being salt and light in relationship with a coworker. Her description of their conversations and the coworker’s current struggles (the church is intolerant, the church is sexist and looks down on women, yada yada yada) did not spark my evangelistic zeal or prompt me to pray—it just made me tired. Perhaps it’s because I spent years engaged in long apologetics battles with a man I’d rather have been engaged to marry, but even now I feel only impatience with the coworker’s issues and an overwhelming gladness I don’t have to deal with them.

And that’s wrong. When new situations dredge up past hurts, I can admit those feelings. When the conflict-phobic church leader or tunnel-vision boss makes another bad decision, I can choose to let it go for the sake of my blood pressure. When the self-absorbed neighbor hangs up the kill, I can close the blinds and try to ignore it. But when I structure my life to avoid God’s call to love others, I’m the biggest idiot of all.