But the fruit of the Spirit is
love
joy
peace
patience
kindness
goodness
faithfulness
gentleness
and self-control.
There is no law (Jewish Law) against such things.

A heart at peace gives life to the body, but envy rots the bones.

Whoever oppresses the poor shows contempt for their Maker,

but whoever is kind to the needy honors God.

(King Solomon)

The envious die not once, but as oft as the envied win applause.

Gracian

Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Peace is the beauty of life. It is sunshine. It is the smile of a child, the love of a mother, the joy of a father, the togetherness of a family. It is the advancement of man, the victory of a just cause, the triumph of truth.

Menachem Begin

Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.

Lau Tzu

Envy blinds men and makes it impossible for them to think clearly.

Malcolm X

Giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue;

and to virtue knowledge;

and to knowledge temperance;

and to temperance patience;

and to patience godliness;

and to godliness brotherly kindness;

and to brotherly kindness charity.

For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Peter

FROM A PASSAGE FULL OF WOES, HERE IS THAT REFERENCE

Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone.

 Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel.

Matthew

Do not neglect the gift that is in you.

living water

I am made in the image of God, not your image of God.

The saints just don't gather by the river. The saints just don't gather on Sunday Mornings. The saints just don't gather with the people who look like them and think like them and believe like them. The saints gather so that we might share our story and see the Divine living within the story, so that we rise up again, and again, and again.

And that's another cool thing my Senior Pastor told us.

PROGRAM LISTINGS & PROGRAM SCHEDULES

Envy rots the bones! Ouch. Ouch. Ouch. A self-inflicting wound. A burning from the inside. Blood heated to the boil. Dried. Marrow singed. Slowly brittled. It rots. Ouch! Ouch! Ouch! Numb.

Envy is full of zeal. A powerful force. Envy's got the soul of a zealot! It is a twin-headed demon. A two-headed snake, I would've announced before this thought troubled me: isn't the poor snake demonized enough? Oh come, my bleeding heart. Envy - one of Seven Deadly Sins - wrecks joy and destroys peace. Boom! It blows the mind . . . to smitherenes. All self-inflicted!

Love does not ENVY.

Sharing time!

Why do you love me? Have you ever faced that awkward question? I have. This question is an inevitable intrusion of the heart into every exploration or investigation of its brainier sibling: what is true love?

Those two questions bug the hell out of each other until they are properly settled in joy and peace OR go their own way sadly!

So how did you respond to the question: why do you love me? Or were you the one asking the question: why do you love me? Do tell! What truths were disclosed? Sparks or sparkles? What facts were revealed? Or did you not dare give voice to that inflamed provocateur, rather then resorted to subtle insiduous probing tests - Ouch-ouch-ouch - to the stirring up of trials and tribulations?

Pray, do tell.

Hmmm?

Take a deep breath.

Our eyes are beginning to open. Our hearts can bare its truth. Let's sink our minds into this sweet meat. It will turn out well.

During our first two explorations we diiscovered that love is a quality of being. We examined two of its revealed qualities, its edifying characteristics - the remarkable miracle of being - and were enthused by those findings. And now a new revelation! Love . . . DOES . . . NOT.

Boom.

Love not only is; love has the power to do or not to do AND has made a remarkably irreversible decision. "I do not envy."

Love simply DOES NOT do envy! Period! Full stop. End of question. Case open and shut!. No room for debate! No time to waste. Love does not envy.

Awesome!

Did I hear you say, hold it right there?

Okay. And stop worrying! I already know the prickly little question burrowing beneath the buried brain: what is this two-headed demon?

Are you ready for a revelation? Let's do this first.

Envy is a) coveting the attainments, ascension, advantages, achievements, dispositions, belongings of another - and more clearly - b) wanting what belongs to someone else and / or wanting for that someone not to have what belongs to that someone. Covetousness, Invidiousness. Resentment. A Green-eyed Monster.

So what's the big deal, besides the audacity of it?

Do you know how it is that some people strain at a gnat and swallow a cow? This is a cow! A demonic cow!

I still remember the first time I heard my mother saying, "Oh, how people can strain at a gnat and swallow a cow," and I was desperate to find out what she meant. We lived near cow pasturess back then. And I had never seen anyone swallowing a cow. My God, what a mouth they must have! And what a gut! My mother's declaration resonates with me most every day these days. We strain at gnats and swallow cows! This is not only a metaphor; it is a biblical metaphor. Have you ever seen anyone swallowing a cow or a camel? Yes, you do! Quite often these cows are constantly being stuffed down slack throats. Would that envy be a gnat, but it is a cow! A demonic cow! It has TWO heads!

How do I know? Let me show you the epitaphs, but I promise I will not be able to show you them all - the task is way too exhausting! But come! Pause at each of these. See each with your own private eyes. Hear each with your own ears. Feel each with your own heart. Touch them gently. Then breathe.

Cain vs Abel

Essau vs Jacob

Ishmael vs Isaac

Joseph vs his brothers

Herod vs The Christ Child

. . . on and on . . . down through millennia . . . all around our lives . . .

If only they had grasped LOVE, for it DOES NOT ENVY!

Envy and jealousy are not the same thing! True, some aspects of these wounds are similar, and they are sometimes correctly, and too many times incorrectly, translated to mean the same thing, nevertheless, this envy being spoken - invidia - is not jealousy, so let's not toss that gnat into our grab bag and cause undue strain; there is suffering enough. We'll point our microscope to jealousy in due course. At this moment envy is in the grinder. We find no benevolence, no goodwill, no kindness, no sympathy, no peace, no joy in it; only hearts smashed against jagged rocks and crushed beneath its clever feats. Love don't do envy! Punto Final. So that's it, but a thought is coming to mind. A what if!

What if - what if - when we see that green monster in the mirror, or sense its hammer, hot nail in hand, heading to our hearts; what if we recognizie it instead as an ugly-fication of a worthy desire, then rather than succomb to its self-mutiating adventures we give it that good ole 'get-thee-behind-me-satan-wallop' and transform its negative power into a positive passion focused on betterment and achievement? You know, give this envy-thing a dip in baptismal fire, you know, an opportunity to be reborn into a kind of greatness, you know, a hallelujah kind of a thing? What if we do that rather than engage it in a kcock-down-tear-down against the rightful possessor of the thing we want, desire, and perhaps even deserve to also have; a battle we will most certainly lose sooner or later? What do you think? For sure, love don't do envy! Punto Final.

Step into this world with me where envy has no currency, where accomplishments are celebrated, where attainments bring delight, and rejoicing is favored, where genuine happiness is aroused by true happiness and my advantage is doggone sexy and your advantage is Grrrrr!-wuff-wuff!

Real? Or fantasy?

Love does not envy. This envy is not jealousy; it is a destructive agent, a demonic juggernaut, a self-inflicting wound. Isn't it awesome to discover 'love does not . . . envy?'

Being fully functional and wholly human!

Love does . . .

Aha! Before love can decide to does not, it's got to know to do! Makes sense, right? It does in my brain, so here we go. Why even waste your time judging me; I am learning too.

Love is an active, accountable, responsible 'being' that makes decisions reflective of its authentic self.

Woo-hoo! Isn't that crazy good? Stay with me. Stay with love!

Love is and love does. In fact, we'll soon discover love is quite athletic, brilliantly creative, and endlessly romantic, but all that's to come. Just stay with me. Stay with love. Can you feel your ticky-tocky tick-it-tee-tocking? Good. You're still with us. Brace yourself; it's coming.

Do you find - in this moment - love to be, well, let me give you a few options to run your mind against or feel free to add your own sizing of authentic love:

So here it comes, are you ready?

Since authentic love - this awesome entity we have only just begun to explore and examine - is so powerful and self-sustaining a being which does as it intends mightily above all we have heard and seen, does this beautiful being - authentic love - abide in you, or do you abide in it, or is it a being you've befriended who is ever beside you readily responsive to your beck and call? Which is it? There is a miracle lurking in your awareness. Not kidding. That's a promise I did not make, made way-way-way above my paygrade. Are you aware?

Then which is it?

Do share.

"Knowledge that takes you not beyond yourself is far worse than ignorance." Elif Shafak.

Something To Consider

* * *

You are

What a PRIVILEGE!