Attitudes toward desire
October 31, 2023
It
is a World War II film about the father of an unwed mother marries her off to a
farmer who will raise her baby as his own. Personally I found the movie slow
and yet able to hold your interest and curiosity up to the end. Indeed there is magic in ordinary days when
there is love and respect, and persons are true to themselves and to the
others. “I’ve learned more about love in
my six months with this family than in the 25 in my father’s home”, confessed
Livy, who finally delivered her baby. It
is love that gives meaning, intimacy and virtue into everything we do in our days
that usually are ordinary.
Following is
the continuation of the previous post on the longings of the heart (From
Broken Gods, Hope, Healing, and the
Seven Longings of the Human Heart, Gregory K. Popcak, Ph. D. Ch 2).
The Three Attitudes Toward Desire
We desire a lot of things: wealth, status, power, sex, security,
affirmation, and health are just a few of the longings almost every person
aches to fulfill. Sadly, we often have a
complicated relationship with our desires.
In his book Fill These Hearts
(2012), Christopher West notes that, in the face of their desires, people tend
to become addicts, stoics, or mystics.
Those who adopt the addict mind-set tend
to unquestioningly surrender to their desires, whatever they may be. Although the term “addict” could involve
actual addictions, West uses the term more metaphorically. The addict tends to assume that his or her
devotion to sex, food, money, status, esteem, emotional extremes, drugs, alcohol,
and the like is a good thing and is largely beyond his or her ability to
control it. Many of us adopt the posture
of the addict in some area of our lives when we find our passions or desires
consuming us and complicating our lives in some way.
Addicts tend to think that the strength of their desires is the
problem. But, properly understood and
gracefully ordered, strong desires can actually fuel our divinization! The real problem is that instead of seeing
that desire points to something greater, the addict makes an idol out of desire
itself (Pargament, 2011). The pursuit of
these idols—whether chemical addictions, habitual obsessions, or codependent
relationships—can imitate the feeling
of transcendence we have when we experience an authentically sacred moment,
but, ultimately, these compulsions cause disintegration and conflict instead of
the integration and peace that come from the real thing (Pargament, 2011). The problem with these common idols is not
that they are sources of pleasure, but that ultimately they are not pleasurable
enough.
God created us so that every desire we
have will ultimately point to our essential longing for deep intimacy with
him. Unfortunately, instead of reaching
for the encounter with the sacred hidden on just the other side of our earthly
desires, addicts settle for the pleasure of the moment. Ironically, the more we settle, the more
unsettled we feel. The result is an even
more obsessive relationship with the idol.
We return again and again to the dry well hoping that this time our
thirst will be quenched. In the words of
culture commentator and author Mark Shea, “You can never get enough of what you
don’t really want” (2001).
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Question for reflection: In the face of what desires do you tend to
adopt the attitude of the addict?
Tomorrow November 1 is All Saints’ Day. The ORDO 2023 reads: Originating in the 4th century Eastern feast of all Martyrs, and attested to by St. Ephrem (+373), Pope Gregory IV established this commemoration for all the Saints of the Roman Church in 835. Originally celebrated on Easter Friday, it came to be held in Rome on 13 May; later, in the 9th century, it was transferred to 1 November, the date of its celebration in Ireland where it countered the Celtic pagan feast of the Druids.
A plenary indulgence, applicable only to the souls in Purgatory, is granted to any of the faithful who 1) on one of the days from 1 to 8 November visit devoutly a cemetery or who simply pray mentally for the dead; 2) on All Souls Day (or else with the permission of the Ordinary, on the Sunday that precedes or follows, or else on All Saints’ Day) visit a church or chapel with devotion and there recite the Our Father and the e Creed.
A partial indulgence, applicable only to
the souls in Purgatory, is granted to any of the faithful who 1) visit devoutly
a cemetery or who simply pray mentally for the dead; 2) pray devoutly Lauds or
Vespers of the Office of the Dead, or the invocation Eternal rest grant… (Requiem
aeternam dona…) (Enchiridion of
Indulgeneces, edition of 1999, concession 29).
Affectionately,
Guadalupinky
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