The Seven Deadly Sins? Let Us Count Them All

In writing recently about the Ojai music festival, I noted that one of the numbers played was “The Seven Deadly Sins,” but confessed that I could not remember a single one of them.

Several readers have written to remind me. “The Seven Deadly Sins,” writes Henry Cimring, “were pride, wrath, envy, lust, gluttony, avarice and sloth.”

Unlike some of the others, Cimring offers me no moral advice.

Carl Pearlston, a Torrance attorney, lists the seven as “anger, covetousness, envy, gluttony, lust, pride and sloth.”

Pearlston also lectures: “In an age marked by hedonism, moral relativism, and a lack of personal responsibility, where the concept of guilt is out of favor, and the very idea of sin is viewed as archaic, it is understandable that you would momentarily forget what are the seven deadly sins.”

Pearlston observes that the seven virtues are faith, hope, charity, prudence, justice, fortitude and temperance. “Society’s moral sense has not improved by abandoning the concept of sinful behavior and these specific sins, and we would be much better off if we taught the desirability of observing these specific virtues.”

Charles A. Szychowski of Sierra names the seven deadly sins as pride, envy, sloth, intemperance, avarice, ire and lust.

Collette North observes that if I had asked my friend Steve Baer, whose invitation to early Mass that morning I had declined, he could probably have “rattled off all seven.” She says he also might have been able to fill me in on the Six Commandments of the Church, the Sins that Cry to Heaven for Vengeance, the Nine Ways of Being Accessory to Another’s Sin, the Seven Spiritual Sins and the Seven Corporal Works of Mercy.

“They kept us little sinners busy back there at Holy Innocents School in Pittsburgh, Pa., in the ‘20s,” North writes. “It was one of the I-forget-how-many ways to avoid the occasion of sin. Though I long ago gave up on the church, the memories linger on.”

I seem to have sinned myself in that column about the Ojai festival. Quote: “After the concert Saturday night, we dropped in at the Pierpont Inn piano bar. The resident pianist was playing some Gershwin medley featuring ‘Rhapsody in Blue.’ He was really pounding the keys. After the delicate finesse of the concerts, the noise sounded very American.”

Susan Rosas writes that the pianist was her husband, Gil Rosas, and she protests that the words “pounding the keys” and “noise” have never before been used to describe one of his performances.

She writes that Rosas is “a classically trained and highly regarded pianist who has practiced his art for more than 40 years. . . . In addition to his popularity as a ‘piano bar’ entertainer, my husband is an active and accomplished church organist and concert artist. Gil’s love of fine music and his enthusiasm for sharing it with his audience are evident to anyone who spends a few minutes in his company.”

It appears that I am guilty of the sin of maligning an artist. I plead not guilty. In saying that he “pounded the keys,” I meant only that he played “Rhapsody in Blue” with the patriotic fervor and bombast intended by its composer. In fact, I imagine that the instruction “pound it” is written on the sheet music. As I said, after the dilettantism of the concert, it sounded stirringly American. Actually, I thought Rosas was great, and certainly the best piano bar pianist I have ever heard.

He has another advantage, too. He has a very spirited defender in his wife.

As far as my own record is concerned, I’m afraid I have been guilty of at least a few of the deadly sins. I am not above occasional anger, I am sometimes envious, now and then I’m proud, and on occasion--especially in my youth--I have known lust. Slothful and gluttonous, however, I am not.

Frank H. Ruffra, whose occasional letters are perceptive and literate, says that it wouldn’t have hurt me to attend the Mass. “It may even have encouraged you to return to the Catholic faith. . . . It is difficult to return to the church. I understand that. But it can and should be done.”

I don’t know what gave Ruffra the notion that I was raised in the church. My father was an atheist. My mother was a failed Baptist. I am, at best, an agnostic. I go to church only for funerals and weddings.

As a boy, I went to Sunday school. I loved singing those hymns. (“Let the lower lights be burning, send a gleam across the way,” and my favorite, “Jesus wants me for a sunbeam--a sunbeam, a sunbeam, I’ll be a sunbeam for him.”)

But more than that, I enjoyed the girls singing with me.

Alas, even my memories of Sunday school are tinged with lust.

* Jack Smith’s column is published Mondays.