Snatches of Packing, Gardening and Pondering Sin

I have been writing about fall-out from the Cardinals McCarrick and Wuerl scandals, and my hands ache so much at the end of the day that it is hard for me to write anything else.

In the mornings before work, I have been going to the Historical House to pack up books. Small cardboard boxes, especially vodka boxes, are best for this task.  Four more hours should get the job done. 

One evening this week before dinner I rushed out to continue pulling up the dandelions in the lawn, and this morning I managed to get outside again to empty the veg scraps bin on what is still just a compost heap. No compost bin as yet. 

I have watched one television show--"Celebrity Masterchef"---and after so long away from TV, I was surprised by how very boring and mindless it was and wondered why anyone would watch "Celebrity Masterchef" instead of reading a book. There are so many good books, and so few great TV shows. We recognised the face of only one celebrity and the name of the 80s band of another, the mood music was stupid, and the dishes the chefs made looked thoroughly unappetising.  It was a complete waste of an hour, and it frightens me to think that there are people who spend a third of their time--or more--watching television. This is surely not something worthy of human beings. 

Another thing that has been bothering me is artificial snacks. Because so much of the McCarrick/Wuerl scandals involve sins and networks that don't tempt me, I decided it would be a good idea to look at my own inclinations and see if I do anything that could be considered disordered in itself.  And it occurred to me at once that--even if this is "small matter", as B.A. says--there is something  inherently wrong with eating food that has little nutritional value, like potato chips (or crisps, as they are called in Britain), when one has access to highly nutritional food. 

Gluttony is one of the Seven Deadly Sins, and chowing down on something just because it has a pleasurable balance of salt, fat and crunchiness strikes me as a kind of gluttony. Fortunately for this point of view, the apples in the back garden are now ripe, and if I suddenly long to eat something, I can eat one of them. However, stress-eating may also be a form of gluttony. At any rate, we are supposed to ponder our own sins instead of other people's, so I am trying to do that to balance out what I write about all day these days.

Well, back to work.