As I've been thinking about sloth this week (check out this week's sermon to see how all this thinking turned out), and re-defining it in my own mind not so much as laziness but as apathy, it makes more and more sense to me.  Even the busiest of us are sometimes apathetic about the things that matter most. Busy-ness is not the test; what's important is caring about the things that are significant.  Here's a quote that really hit me, from The Enigma of Anger, by Garrett Keizer:

 "I sometimes realize with a shudder that had I lived when Jesus lived, I probably would never have gone to hear him preach.  I might have thought about going, but then, considering the bother involved, I probably would have settled for reading the book whenever it came out.  He would have had to come to me." 

What are the things that have the power to stir you beyond what you must do, or are already committed to?  I've watched with amazement this season as millions of people have participated in political rallies and caucuses, and I have asked myself, would I go, if it were snowing outside? I listened to news this weekend of almost 500,000 people demonstrating in Serbia over the independence of Kosovo, and wondered what would move us, or me, to join that kind of political demonstration? 

 Is this a matter of culture?  Personal energy?   Or is it something else?  What gives a message the capacity to stir us into action?