How does one fare in this world in comparison to another? Is this not alone already flirting with covetousness?
One of our sons started running Cross Country.
I think to myself and smile because having been raised by the unspoken understanding that only the rich afforded to play sports as children, I didn’t even know there was such thing as a sport for just running great distance through a course.
I laugh because there was a time, I believe I mentioned this story in a previous entry several years back, where even a police officer in his patrol car followed me all the way back home, that time I innocently did not realize during one of my runs to the lake homes that it would get dark during my return.
How I used to just run to what were big and beautiful homes to me back then, always using this one house as my marker to turn back, just a pause to look at its white, stuccoed walls, with periodically a different flag hanging by its entry.
To think those long runs would have been far more an actual cross country training each time, if I had known such sport existed, and if such opportunity was even offered as far back as junior high, I can only wonder if I would have had the push, instead of pull, to take part in.
To see our children participate in sports just as soon as they could- a privilege they have no idea I am grateful to have had the hunger for so that now, I can vicariously be satiated by their victories.
I wonder how many other children have looked at ours during practices or games and think, ‘They have a mother who regularly attends with a father who shows up and coaches, too?’
How can our children understand anything different?
I pick up pencils on the floor at the end of the day around my class as if they at times fell from the ceiling, several more in the hallways to unfailingly be found.
To think I probably, without exaggeration, had hand-me-downs of pencils from my older siblings to hold onto for the year, I can only breathe and exhale any judgment of children today who receive packs for free.
You just have to laugh to yourself. How would today’s children around me even understand such care?
Papa used to tell me he and his brothers (not sure about his sisters) would tie banana trunks around their feet to walk to school while having to do the same routine before walking back home.
I recall thinking how fortunate I was to have shoes, even if the sole was flipping open, letting rainwaters come through during my time in junior high.
How can one complain to follow the story of one like my Papa’s?
And, yet, I see in children now the lack they perceive to each have, coveting one to the next who seemingly have so much more.
Such a world to find ourselves entranced by all materialistic enticements, subliminally advertised by the wears and carryings of others, suggesting you, too, should have what they were able to get.
That pure innocence of a child, tampered by the influences of society around, slowly convinced that they lack something they never even needed before.
To be alive and to survive seems a taken-for-granted privilege, seeing those who also thrive.
The anger, the bitterness, I see children trying at best to not have to feel, but in time, infiltration in the heart, mind, and body, causes only the spirit to cower down.
The entry to adolescence, the beginning introduction to exchanges of spite and vengeance, at times from those they don’t even know, still too young to understand that a better exterior, talent, and natural flow, places a lifelong mark on one – as a threat to other’s existence.
While one can do away with the world of materialism, there is still the inner fight to ignore those who are the stronger, the smarter, the happier, the skinnier, the seemingly always lucky one to get noticed with admiration as others try to get even just a smudge of what that feels like.
Songs sung by beautiful and talented artists like Beyoncé, stating, I woke up like this, creates the wonder of who didn’t.
The fairness. Where is it?
Attacks become the ultimate choice, with an unwanted-to-face motive.
Thou shall not covet. That numbered as tenth one to follow.
When one is full, one does not hunger.
Allow me to reflect in my way.
We forget that no one stays full forever. We all hunger sometimes in life, no matter how mounded our plate may portray itself to be.
Each of us having been trained to understand forty days and forty nights of temptation. Each of us not realizing, at times, we have been in the midst of such test.
How do we fare to the passing one?
One’s plate may be full of pasta, but what of those whose plate is full of barbecue ribs or seafood?
It’s not what’s on the plate, all of a sudden, to perceive as full. Yes?
Emptiness can be hidden.
One can be seen from the outside as being most abundantly full above others, and yet, the one looked upon could be lacking of something so much more than what others could ever understand.
Even the most filled with abundance could simply be lacking what others so pricelessly have- love, trust, health or even, friendship.
So, the runner, when not careful, will be tripped, regardless of their story of just trying to go somewhere, but where they’ve been.
Even the walker, if looking to enjoy the pasture too much, while perhaps just trying to recover from many laps already run, happy to finally get the chance to slow down and just breathe, another will find a way to derail the momentarily perceived fortune.
The one having already had too many victories, suffering from never knowing when to stop, having not yet found or felt the joy of satisfaction, others only sick of as that one getting in their way to even get close to such recognition, just once.
There goes the sub-conscience, although the heart feels to celebrate one else’s victories, such hit milestones missed or not reached only serve as reminders of a feat unclaimed.
Thou shall not covet. But, how does one fare?
I covet peace, where valleys run free of blooming flowers and abundant vegetation on fertile ground, hill upon hills around to climb, so you can look upon such splendor with not one fearing invasion or interruption, welcoming the breeze that whip through one’s face, from sunrise to sunset.
I covet innocence, a time of no judgment, where to trip or stumble does not only draw others to help one get back up, but draw those around, to gather, to give aid to any cut or bruises, helping to mend any wounds so rise up and walk one would get to do again.
I covet faultless laughter, where even dark comedy is understood due to all being so filled with a light heart that one’s intentions to be part of all good humor is embraced without limitations, where everyone dares fully to laugh themselves to joyful tears.
I covet freedom, true freedom. That freedom where to speak loudly and freely, even without thought, is welcome without repercussions, having no entrapments for the words coming out of one’s mouth-just free to be, where all can fearlessly embrace the seeking for absolute truth, together, as one.
I covet free of worry and concern, where the heart, the mind, the body, and thus, the spirit, can all just continuously play together as children, dancing and prancing around without worry of time or intrusion; shielded, protected, and supported to desire and seek one’s greatness, growing and knowing without doubt, to just simply become.
Forgive me, Lord, for even I have sinned.
