Each person is tempted when lured and enticed by his desire. Then desire conceives and brings forth sin. St. James in his epistle sees desire as the immediate cause of sin. A contemporary philosopher, Rene Girard, refines that insight by seeing what he called mimetic desire as the root cause. Mimetic desire has “imitation” as its foundation — I desire something because I see what someone else has. I want Air Jordans. Mom, I have to have an IPhone, all the kids have one. The epistle goes on to say that desire produces violence. Did you see a movie called “The Gods Must Be Crazy?” A primitive tribe has a coke bottle land in their midst. They were happy without the coke bottle before but once it was there, everyone started fighting to get it. Lent is the appropriate time to look at our desires — are they mimetic? do we want something because we see what someone else has? Or do our desires flow from our deepest self, a desire for fulfillment in God?
