So my theory on "bridle all your passions that ye may be filled with love" as of late.
a) that passions have less physical/healthy/acceptable counterparts. So love is akin to but different from lust, anger is akin to but different from righteous indignation, etc. When we're asked to bridle our passions, we're not asked to become an unmoved being, but to focus on the healthy and necessary counterparts of the drives that motivate us.
b) because passions are physical, you can feel them in your body. So lust is pretty obvious, but does anyone else feel jealous in their gut? Literally feel the longing and anger up through their abdomen and attached solidly to the muscle of your neck and upper back?
c) that love (and I'm thinking charity) is a kind of skittish creature. Once our bodies (unfettered) get in the way, we can't feel it.
So jealousy. The selfish evil twin sister of, what, admiration? I think a passion we don't often think of as such. How do we bridle this fellow? Any ideas?
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
On Passion
Posted by Kjerstin Evans Ballard at 10:32 PM
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5 comments:
Perhaps the twin of jealousy is ambition, some kind of righteous ambition.
Anger is certainly felt in the body. Very few but memorable times I have been filled with odd and unexplainable anger that moved muscles and all that. I'm not sure it was righteous, even if it had its beginnings in a righteous place. Not to say I pummeled anybody; I just squirmed.
i love everything i've read in the last 5 minutes on your blog. thanks for writing, and writing so well.
Logically jealousy would be connected to feeling glad for others' success/ possessions/ happiness. What is the ideal of that? Interesting question. I don't know if there is one.
What advantage is there to being glad for others in any kind of spiritual sense? It seems like this passion is tied more to negativity ... see, e.g. President Benson's Pride talk about how envying the rich is a form of pride. Lots of ways to get from jealousy to sins, but I don't see any commandments to cheer on the winners in life, just to not be so proud as to resent them or covet their stuff.
I think Yoda said something about it in Revenge of the Sith, which, if I could remember it exactly, I am sure clear everything up it would.
Now here's an interesting thing (glad your fast is over, btw).
When jealousy is used as a noun meaning "envy," the antonym is listed as "pride or admiration."
I actually think there's quite a lot of spiritual advantage to being glad for others. There is something about such admiration and excitement on behalf of another that just screams charity to me. To love others, to be proud of somebody and excited for them, to admire them and encourage them (all opposites of jealousy) without any "real" advantage to yourself is actually the greatest thing of all, for it turns you into something else. What a way to cast off the "natural man" and become more Christlike. So while there may not be many obvious commandments instructing us to be glad for others, I think it's safe to assume that when the Lord asks us to not be jealous or covetous, that he is in effect asking us to be charitable - to be the kind of person who doesn't always have to see something in it for themselves.
Jeremy-- Romans 12:15: Rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with them that weep.
I think there is something fundamentally Christlike about cheering on the winners (or losers). It seems like a natural extension of "As I have loved you, love one another" and the golden rule. Does Christ cheer the winners? I think so. Is it nice when other people celebrate your success with you? If so, share the rejoicing, right?
Now, the definition of success is a whole different thing.
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