Hunger

"Yon Cassius hath a lean and hungry look." ~William Shakespeare in Julius Caesar

In today's reading from Genesis (daily office lectionary) we see Pharaoh telling Joseph of a dream he had about seven sleek (healthy and fat) cows and seven poor, thing and ugly cows coming up out of the Nile and eating them. The poor, thin and ugly cows didn't even look any better for the bovine cannibalistic meal they had just had either. They were still poor, thin, and the ugliest cows the Pharaoh had ever seen in the land of Egypt. Pharaoh didn't know it, but this was a dream about hunger, a famine that was coming to the land seven years down the road.

Hunger is dangerous. It takes over the mind and clouds a person's thinking. It makes war and calamity. Hunger kills. Hunger was and is the classic reason to go to War. My people are hungry, your people have food or wealth that I can use to get food with. Hunger is the reason that we go in and take it from you. I quoted Julius Caesar because it was the first thing that came to mind when I read that passage. Cassius wanted power. He was hungry for it. So he took it. Caesar was right. He was dangerous.

The gospels are full of stories about food. Physical food and spiritual food feature largely in these tales. Both are needed to take a person to a place where they can fully receive instruction and become who they need to be.

What are you hungry for?

Revenge

Life is what you make of it. If you look at everything like it's a big pile of trouble and all about you--it will be a big pile of trouble but it's never going to be all about you. Your customer smells like the wrong end of a horse because of their own hygiene choices or a medical problem. Their funk is not a personal affront to you. You do not have to talk about it for five minutes after they leave. Rude people are rude because they are unhappy. If you made them that way, it is your own fault. If you didn't, guess what? It isn't about you. If you're unhappy, you either have a reason to be and you'll get over it, or you made yourself that way and you'll get over it, or you won't. Nobody can make you stay miserable though. You always have a choice. Revenge is for people who have time to spend on people who have hurt them.

Revenge is a dish best left on the bottom shelf of the refrigerator until you have the intestinal fortitude to throw it out without tasting it. I figured that out when I read the daily office readings (Book of Common Prayer) yesterday and the story of Joseph's brothers selling him to the Ishmaelites was there. I've done some pretty insane things to my siblings and had some pretty insane things done to me, but those guys bought the farm on the jealousy trip. The best part? Old Joe just plays with them a bit and forgives them at the end of the story. The old BCP hasn't gotten to that part yet, but that's how it ends. Why? Because he got into the situation because he told them about the dream, and he got rich and powerful because they sold him off, and that makes him the WINNER. Why? He didn't eat that nasty dish of revenge that was all green and moldy in the way back corners of his fridge. If he had, he'd have lost his family too. That would have made a LOUSY ending to a story, right? No? Well, it would be a lousy ending to this story because it's about a nice Jewish boy.

(Leslie ranting...)