Avarice

I had never heard of the term avarice before this class.  Now that I know what it means I can relate to it.  This vice is one that consumes many peoples lives and can be very destructive.  Avarice, or greed as we usually know it, is the want and reliance of material possessions and not relying on the good and happiness that God gives us.  We develop this vice from habit.  Avaricious people are attached to money and the happiness they get from buying things.  We should more like liberal people who are defined by their detachment to money and goods.  We should enjoy giving things away and we shouldn't only give away things that we don't like or need anymore.  DeYoung says, "Avarice is not just about having more; it's about what is mine" (104).  I think this is one of the reasons we don't usually like giving things away because we have worked for it or earned it and this makes it hard to just give away sometimes.  But we should have such trust and dependence on God that we do not have to worry about what we have.  DeYoung does mention that we should make sure that we have enough for ourselves and those close to us.  An avaricious person's life is centered around their possessions.  DeYoung says, "Our possessions are meant to serve our needs and our humanness, rather than our lives being centered around service to our possessions and our desire for them" (106).  As with all the vices, avarice is also rooted out of pride.  This prideful greed is the desire to take God's role and make sure we get what we want ourselves.  A desire to be fully self-dependent.  An avaricious person can never get their fill; they never know when enough is enough.  One way to try to combat avarice is tithing.  "Tithing, like fasting, is the habitual practice of limiting our use of a good thing to regularly and continually loosen our attachment to it..." (114).  Another practice that DeYoung suggests is to give money away every week. 


Our discipline this week was to add up the costs of all the clothes in our closets here at school.  My total was roughly $3180.  I never realized how much money was spent on clothes.  I think we can all agree that we don't actually need all of the clothes that we have.  We simply want new clothes.  I never really realized how avaricious I was until reading this chapter.