What is a spiritual sloth?

My friend and I were reading The Road Back to You by Cron and Stabile together (this is our 31st book). When we read that the “deadly sin” for Type 9 is ‘sloth’, we looked up from our respective pages and burst out laughing. According to her, I get more done in a day than anyone she knows, and the last word she would use to describe me is ‘sloth’. But we continued reading, and it turns out that I am a spiritual sloth. Ouch!

When my spiritual director suggested that I read the above-mentioned book, she warned me that I will know what Type I am because the chapter will make me very uncomfortable. I have to agree. When I saw myself – warts and all – described on the pages in the Type 9 chapter there was a lot of wincing. However, the activity of personal growth does not happen without first gaining self-awareness, and then leaning into acceptance – so there was nothing to do but keep reading. As Cron writes: “Average Nines are disconnected from the passion and motivational drive necessary to rise up and live their ‘one wild and precious life’.” Quoting Mary Oliver will generally get my attention!

Type 9s are known for wanting to avoid conflict at any price and I definitely resonate with being conflict-avoidant. What spiritual costs have I paid over the years by not living up to my God-given potential? By keeping life at bay? By being too focused on not rocking the boat?

For most of my life I have been a member of a world-wide Christian lay faith community: meaning no paid ministers. Practices are slowly changing, but historically (until 2020) in almost all of the individual churches around the world, men held positions of leadership and vocal roles, while women taught Sunday school, organized potlucks, took care of the children and other nurturing tasks. Instead of organizing the church around our spirit gifts and the God-given skills/strengths/passions of each member we divide the work on the basis of gender, based on misunderstanding some key Scriptural passages.

I stopped attending Sunday morning services in 2020, and have spent the time since asking myself lots of spiritually-focused questions. No longer attending Sunday service was my Obliger Rebellion. One Saturday night in March 2020, I said – literally out loud to my husband – “I can’t do this anymore. I can no longer attend a church where women are silent.”

I didn’t rock the boat; I got out of it. I am still living with the regret and anger of staying for so long, and working on letting it go. In the meantime, I feel called to attend Seminary where I will learn about spiritual transformation. So, I am a slowly (pun intended) recovering sloth.

And sure, I have been known to lie on the couch for most of a rainy Saturday reading a novel!