Callousness in the spiritual life, what is it? Sensuality? Why is it deadly? According to God, in Ephesians four, these are two traits that are not to be named among Jesus followers. These two traits are part of the life you used to live and not the abundant life you should be that Jesus gave us. Oscar Wilde rose to become the toast of London, appreciated not only for his plays, Lady Windemere’s Fan, The Ideal Husband, and The Importance of Being Earnest, and his novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, but for his grace, wit, and charm. And then, at the height of his success, his star fell. On trial at the Old Bailey, he was convicted of indecent behavior and sentenced to two years of hard labor, which ultimately broke his spirit and heart1 In one of his last two books, he wrote the following. “The gods had given me almost everything. But I let myself be lured into long spells of senseless and sensual ease…Tired of being on the heights, I deliberately went to the depths in search for new sensation. What the paradox was to me in the sphere of thought, perversity became to me in the sphere of passion. I grew careless of the lives of others. I took pleasure where it pleased me and passed on. I forgot that every little action of the common day makes or unmakes character and that, therefore, what one has done in the secret chamber, one has some day to cry aloud from the housetop. I ceased to be lord over myself. I was no longer the captain of my soul and did not know it. I allowed pleasure to dominate me. I ended in horrible disgrace.2 Oscar Wilde fell from the graces of his success because he gave into sensuality. Why Sensuality is Not Part of the Abundant Life of Jesus that’s our focus on this week’s Light on Life.
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