OUR STRUGGLE WITH ENVY
Few of us admit to being jealous, yet jealousy is one of the most pervasive and destructive forces on the planet, more deeply engrained in all of us than we ever have the courage to admit. None of us are immune to it.
Ron Rolheiser, OMI
Jealousy rarely calls itself by its real name. It shows itself in us rather as bitterness, as hyper-criticalness, as the incapacity to praise someone else, as a congenital blockage that prevents us from truly rejoicing in others’ good fortune, as an incapacity to feel the same empathy for the fortunate as for the unfortunate, as an unacknowledged sense of relief when a celebrity falls from grace, as a feeling of being cheated on by life itself, and as a restlessness that makes our own lives always too small and asphyxiating.
Scripture tells us that in heaven we will stand before the throne of God to “offer unending praise”. That’s going to be rather difficult, given that we had very little practice in praising anything or anybody on this side of eternity. Simply put, if I go through life habitually bitter, over- critical, and resentful for the way things have turned out, how do I suddenly stop that anger and begin to rejoice in the wonder and beauty of what’s other?
To move towards the day when we can “offer unending praise” involves acknowledging our jealousy and bitterness, grieving our less- than-perfect lives, moving beyond the sophistication of a culture that tells us to praise nothing, and, most important of all, it involves forgiving: We need to forgive ourselves, our parents, our culture, our church, our teachers, our mentors, those who have wounded us, life itself, and God for the state of things and the state of our lives. Otherwise we will die as we live, harbouring bitterness, threatened by other’s good fortune, wanting to possess what isn’t ours, more easily speaking words of criticism than of admiration, and not having had sufficient practice in what constitutes eternal life, namely, “offering endless praise
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