Envy, Gratitude, Sadness, and Longing ... in the Desert

I am feeling so exhausted these days ... but also have had this strong, strong sense that (once again) much of my own sadness may be connected with Envy rather than with more creditable things.

Envy truly is my besetting sin, in so many ways.

I was at Woodward Park this afternoon walking the dog. And saw a man tossing a football back & forth with a youngster I take to be his son. He would pass the ball, and his son would catch it, and his father would say, "Good catch!" "Nice going!" and encouraging things like that.

My own memory of my own rare back-and-forth's with my own Dad involved a baseball; and those were emphatically very, very different. Whew. The anger of my father at me when I didn't catch the ball ... and his angry pitches, harder & harder, intended, no doubt, to "toughen me up" and get me to catch the ball ... had exactly the opposite effect: and I ended up dropping every pitch he "burned in" to me ... more or less I was holding up my mit to shield myself from what was actually him throwing the ball at me rather than to me ... or so it seemed to me ... and I ended up just crying and my father tossing his mit & ball away in disgust and walking off.

I do regret very much not having something of the more common experience with balls & Dads. But how much of my feelings of loss about things like that involve mostly Envy? Envy of others for having what I don't?

I long ... oh how I've always longed ... for the Normal. I didn't get it. So should I then Envy those who did? If anyone did get this semi-mythical Normalcy that is ...

Oh Momma. Oh Dad ... Oh God.

Gratitude though seems far more healthy and far more potent than Envy.

For all things. Almost all things anyway.

Here in the Desert ... isn't that better anyway? To miss; to long, indeed; but to be Grateful for what I have rather than Envy those who fared better in this or that.

There's that wonderful scene in (I think) 1984 when Smith is being consigned to Exile. He is offered a choice of locales. He chooses one that is blasted, devastated, desert-like rather than one that is lush, lovely, tropical, beach-like. Why? Because he doesn't want to become complacent and satisfied and fail to any longer perceive the real absence of things that are very, very precious to him. Longing for such things is right and good. And is the gift of God to the Alien and Exile, not to the wealthy and established person who feels "at home" in this world.

Oh my.

God grant me Gratitude and Longing

God grant me freedom from Envy.

God grant me that Your Will not Mine be done.

In this as in all things

Amen

Charles Delacroix
4th Sunday in Easter