There is a spiritual wisdom across many cultures and religions. For example, St. James in his epistle says, “Each person is tempted when lured and enticed by his desire. Then desire conceives and brings forth sin.” The Buddha said something similar when he described the “noble truth” that human life includes suffering because we are inherently incomplete and the source of suffering are the desires that we wish to have fulfilled. The French philosopher Rene Girard taught that the mimetic desire is the cause of suffering. For him, the problem arises when human desires are not authentic or intrinsic, but rather imitated from others (models). I want what you have. There was a wonderful movie a few years ago called The Gods Must Be Crazy where a coke bottle is dropped into a primitive village. They had lived in harmony before but now there was something to fight over. As we enter into Lent let us examine our desires to see if God is present in them.
