The night will go on, my little windmill

I've always had a weird sort of fascination with the Seven Deadly Sins, even before Brad "Abs" Pitt and Morgan "God" Freedman made them cool. They sound mythical, so Old Testament Biblical, a product of the God that sends plagues and burning chariots and appears to have a weird grudge against firstborns. Unlike the Fruits of the Spirit, Methodists don't tend to harp on the Big 7 too much (probably, as my wikipedia search just informed me, because they were basically made up by a 4th century monk and revised by a Pope). My church tends to avoid the fire-and-brimstone sermons in general, and as such I don't hear as much about the torments awaiting debauchees as I do the merits of having Godlike self-control.

But back to the Sins. They're so sinister. Nothing about them sounds moral. Even if you're of a faith or creed that doesn't buy into the notion of sinning, I think we can all agree that gluttony doesn't particularly become anyone. They also sound, in their most popularized Roman Catholicized form, so extreme. Sure, you could scoff, sometimes I'm a little lazy, but I wouldn't say I'm guilty of sloth. And maybe, every once in a while, I become a little hot-headed in an argument, but wrath? Surely that's beyond me. Exactly how greedy do you have to be to spiral down into the demon-dancing levels of avarice?

Incidentally, my wikipedia page also just informed me that, in their original form, the Seven Sins were extravagance, gluttony, avarice, discouragement, wrath, envy, and pride. Apparently people started lounging and making out so much that a little specificity was required, and the first and the fourth were changed into lust and sloth.

Of course, like anything, when you dial back from the hilariously caricaturized language, into the sane realm of Vices In Which People Who Aren't Axe Murderers Actually Engage, the Seven become harder to make good fun of.

Pride, when taken seriously, is the one that tends to give me pause. Not because I'm at the point that God would hurl me and my minions from the gates of heaven. Nor am I even guilty of thinking that I'm better than anyone else, seeing as that particular sin is probably my #2 pet peeve. It's for the little things. For the fact that, for example, I hate asking for things. Rather than put myself in a position in which my pride is the least bit exposed (how embarrassing if my request is declined!), I much prefer to attempt to use whatever linguistic or situational guile is at my disposal to get what I want without having to ask. If that doesn't work, well, I don't get what I want.

That's awful cunning-sounding. And cunning = Slytherin = snakes = Lucifer himself. Who wants an apple?