Our Seven Deadly Sins, Here In the Virgin Islands

The Seven Deadly Sins are: Pride, Greed, Envy, Anger, Lust, Gluttony, and Sloth. I would also add an eighth sin, Denial.

There are those who will say that these sins exist everywhere else. To them, I don't live everywhere else, I am domicile to the Virgin Islands. As an Elder, it is my responsibility to speak up and out about what I feel is unhealthy behavior.

It is said, that Pride is deadliest of the sins, but I would place Lust to the top of the list.
Especially when a trusted adult is sexually abusing an innocent child. With all of the recorded and unrecorded incidences of child molestation and rape in this small community, this is our worst Sin of all. For me, Lust in any other situation, to each their own.

Pride, what is it that makes the politicians here think that they are the Chosen Privileged. It is really sinful how some of them abuse the trust we have bestowed upon them. In the past, those who violated the respect and trust of the people would have been banished from the village .

Greed, When is enough, Enough? We have here in the Virgin Islands some of the wealthiest individuals and corporations in the world. Yet, many of them invest their profits made here outside of the territory. With their corporate tax write-offs and their play money together could correct most of our social ills. It was said, It would be easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a wealthy man to enter into the Gates Of Heaven.

Envy, this sin is a major cause for the lack of progress made here. The amount of backstabbing and sabotaging that exist in government causes what is often referred to as, bureaucracy, locked in committee, lack of quorum, or better yet, Red Tape. All because they want to block someone for all kinds of negative, self serving reasons.

Anger, the wantless killings of love ones is incomprehensible. The other revengeful murders committed by the youth in our community, should never have been allowed to reach such a crisis. A common response is that, they are only killing each other and they will just kill each other off. My question is, what happens when they turn on the community, at large. Our community is too small for such a sin.

Gluttony can come in many forms, but the form here in the Virgin Islands is Obesity. In most cases Gluttony is a self inflicted habit or an addiction, but not when it causes hardship on their love ones and their caregivers. This is not to exclude the cost factor that forces higher health care and insurance rates for everyone else.

Sloth the complacent attitude toward littering and dumping along our roadsides is a sad reflection to the state of mind of our community for tourist. The condition of our local beaches, where tourist do not frequent are horrible, ex: beer bottles, soda cans, pampers, fast food wrappers, plastic bags, condoms, etc. Most visitors feel that we do not appreciate what we have here.

The sin that will end it all will be Denial, to continue to cast a blind eye on these situations, it will be too late. There are many more examples for each sin that each one of us can identify, but what are we going to do as a community to make amends?

Ivan Butcher II
St.Croix