Wednesday 27 May 2020

The heart wants what it wants




I didn't have time to write a post today so I'm just doing a quick reflection on the ninth commandment from my phone.

"You shall not covet your neighbour's house; you shall not covet your neighbour's servant, or his ox, or his ass, or anything that is your neighbour's."

In the Catholic Church we separate the commandments differently to Protestants. The ninth and tenth commandments both deals with covetousness, or wanting. 

The ninth commandment deals especially with our desires for one another. This leads into our desire for sex, when our want is another person.

Jesus says: 
"Everyone who looks at a woman lustfully has ready committed adultery with her in his heart."

As a dedicated sarcastic cynic for most of my life using the word 'heart' to describe my innermost desire and the core of me in a sincere way was not easy, but it became necessary.

Desire as a want can be shallow and animalistic when it is for something like foos. Often for me this will be a cup of tea. This is the lifeblood of England and a desire shared by my fellow countrymen.

Closer to my heart than tea would be my desire to paint and go to galleries. Lots of people love art but it's a passion I have which others don't and I have cultivated through habit and love through my life.
In a way this then became a part of me because it is so much a part of my life that it then constitutes a part of my own self, my identity.
Yet I could suddenly stop painting and visiting galleries, go off art completely and take up rugby or gardening instead. 
The art is just a thing but it has changed me. I look at things differently because of it, I respond and think differently because of my creativity and love of light, colour and subjects which I like to see in art.

The most important things we desire which come very close to our heart is other people.
In a similar way people change us, and we can look and act differently depending on how and who we spend time with and keep close to us.

I have found one way I was inclined to break this commandment is when I desired not a person, but something about a person.
Someone might have a quality I admired and I would seek them out because of it.

Sometimes a piece of art will be brilliant because of the originality of the composition or exquisite execution or use of colour etc. As an artist I look at some artworks and think "wow! That is so cool, I wish I could do that" or "I wish I had thought of that"
I'm not being covetous, but admiring the skills of another person. 

My love for this subject is ordered enough to appreciate the other without the desire to possess it all for myself.

This is an attitude I can see in my relationships too sometimes.
Depending on my desire, I seek out particular people sometimes because they will help me fulfil what I want.
So if I want to go to an exhibition at a gallery I call an art loving friend. If I want a laugh I call a funny raconteur. Etc.
I admire the persons qualities, whether I have them myself or not.

Close to our hearts are also our identities. Looking back, when I was younger I think I struggled with this sin of covetousness when I saw in people what I wanted to see in myself.

If I saw others had traits or habits I didn't have but wanted I might admire them in a way, but it could make me sad, not happy, because I wanted that part of them for myself.

This sadness doesn't come from love of the other person, even with an acknowledgement of their goodness, it comes from a disorder in our self-love.

This kind of pain impacts how we see ourselves and our relationship with others.

It is a kind of self rejection as well as lack of apprecitation for the other person.

When we just want someone for sex that is the shallow desire similar to desiring food-or tea. The closer we get to the heart, the deeper the desire is and the more it hurts when it is disordered. 

If we seek love with people when we cannot have the relationship we want with them it causes mutual pain.

In friendship, but especially in romantic relationships, we are seeking people like us but who will also take us beyond ourselves;  that's why it can be desirable and good to be with people who have good traits or habits we need.

This love can be genuine and embrace the others goodness even when we see we don't have it, like what I said about art, or it can be jealous and possessive. Wanting the other but resenting the other persons goodness, feeling bad about ourselves. 

It's midnight. I better stop in case I turn into a pumpkin and some hungry witch wants a piece.

Enjoy your passions and keep the people in your life closest to your heart even when what we want makes true love complicated and painful.

God bless you, you are precious to God.

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