Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

The Anchoress

Home
Catholic
Where your treasure is, so will be your heart Part II

Where your treasure is, so will be your heart Part II

Last updated on: March 17, 2017 at 10:14 pm by Elizabeth Scalia

Where your treasure is, so will be your heart Part II 2017-03-17T22:14:34+00:00 Elizabeth Scalia

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Sigmund Carl and Alfred speak to one of the modern spirits of Christmas – the spirit of avarice and of self-preoccupation – with a particularly insightful post.

It is not economics that define a man’s worth, nor it is the opinion of another, perhaps ‘wealthier’ that defines a man. It is what you choose in life, with money or time that puts everyone on an even footing with everyone else. The poor man’s contribution of his time or money is just as valuable as a rich man’s. It is true more money can do more good- but money is not the man- nor does it demean the choices and contributions made by a less well off man. ‘Each according to his ability’ is an admonition to the rich man, not words of consolation to the poor man.”.

Siggy links to an excellent essay by Melanie Phillips, The Trojan Horse of Sex Eduation and manages to find the correlation between the mindless acquisition of money – simply to “have” – and the mindless acquisition of the almighty orgasm which, increasingly, seems to be linked – quite erroneously – to the human quest toward “being.”

Ms. Phillips writes: “…adult values are being loaded onto children who are too emotionally immature to cope with them. Teaching children that premature sex is permitted, appropriate and fun encourages them to try it out. This is hardly rocket science.

…The increase in sexual promiscuity among children and teenagers is not due to ignorance but to the deliberate destruction of the notion of respectability.”

Phillips’ piece is a must-read. She has a great deal of eye-opening information about just how far some governments have gone toward abandoning the idea that parents know what is better for their children than the “experts” swimming in government subsidies – but for now let’s just hang on to this bit about “respectability” being undervalued – a notion I’ve touched on before.

In both essays we see treasure being mis-identified. The great thing about having wealth is not that one is wealthy, but that one is in a position to do a great deal of good with one’s money – as Ebeneezer Scrooge learned in Dickens’ lovely Christmas Story. The great thing about sex is that when it is engaged in out of love – real, committed love – it is not only great-but-fast, it is holy-and-eternal. An orgasm lasts a little while – love lives on.

There is nothing wrong with being rich – the world needs it’s Joseph of Arimetheas, who can provide a clean crypt in a hurry and get access to the flunky in charge of releasing a body – just as much as it needs its Baptizing Johns.

There is no sin in being rich and powerful, or in being lively, rambunctious or extremist in one’s views. Joseph and John were all of those things. Sin comes not from being any of those things, except when – in being rich, or powerful, or rambunctious or extremist – one has embraced one’s self over another, which always results in a failure of love…and a failure of love is the very definition of sin.

How do we fail in love by embracing ourselves? “I’m aborting two of my triplets because if I don’t I’ll have to start shopping only at Costco and buying big jars of mayonnaise,” is a big and kind of obvious failure of love. but there are other failures, smaller ones. We Catholics call them “sins of omission,” when you know you really should invite your lonely elderly neighbor in for a cup of tea but you don’t, because she bores you and you can’t bear an hour of boredom. A failure of love is not listening when a teenager is trying to tell you something, because the subject makes you uncomfortable. A failure of love is calling human beings with whom you may disagree by names like “Chimpy” and “Blow-job.” A failure of love is misspending billions of dollars on “education” and “anti-poverty” policies that – twenty years on – have seen illiteracy rise and poverty far from eradicated, and then blaming those failures on the tax-harrassed middle-class or on anyone but the policy-writers. A failure of love is looking at someone in the car next to you and deciding whether that person is a “good” sort of person because of what he is driving or how heavy she appears to be, or what bumpersticker he or she feels the need to sport.

We all fail at love, every day and (like the word or not) because we all fail at love, we all sin. But we need not fail in love on the big things, like these issues of money and sex. Where our treasures are, there will lie our hearts.

We live in a very odd age wherein the flaunting of wealth is somehow considered to be “inspirational” to the “downtrodden” and the working class, but the spectacle of working-class people dreaming of acquiring their own wealth is considered vulgar. Such dreams are “greedy,” and are routinely denounced by extraordinarily rich, private-jet flying, stock trading people, like Michael Moore and Barbra Striesand and Al Franken – people who doubtless would have given old Bob Cratchit a thumbs up for “keeping it real,” in his freezing hovel as their carriages glided by, headed toward the castle, wherein they will be served by other folks adept at “keeping it real,” and they will merrily pontificate upon the “miserable middle-class” who are too selfish and greedy to willingly “give up more” to take care of “the poor.”

We live in a very odd age wherein anything interpreted as standing in the way of sexual gratification – be it church, or responsible parentage or social stricture or economics – is roundly condemned as being “repressive” and “moralistic” and downright unenlightened. Treating one’s body like a community playground has become noble, and if your reveling in your sexuality has resulted in your infertility, or in your needing a couple of abortions or if that behavior has decreed that you will now spend the next twenty years of your life on protease cocktails trying to outsmart a very, very smart virus, well, that’s noble, too.

It’s even noble if you do – in the course of carousing – have a baby or two, either while unwed or “alternately” wed (as long as you can “afford” the kids and the nanny).

About the only thing ignoble about sex, these days, are the large families that committed, married “breeders” dare to have, (these are immoral and do not deserve tax breaks because kids from large families are not as cool or exceptional as kids from small families upon whom all material and educational advantages may be lavished). Also there is no nobility to be found in anything that even hints at abstinence education. Repressive. Moralistic. Closed-minded.

If your treasure is your stock portfolio, your daily orgasm, and your social standing then your heart will be focused on these things as well. Your life amounts to, Ka-ching! Oh, Gawd! Oh, Gawd! What is there to eat? That moron Bush, I hates him! Cheney too! Do you like my Prada purse? I need a new lover! Why am I alone? Ka-ching!

Basically, you’re Maureen Dowd. You sit at the lunch table with the cool kids…for whatever that is worth. Hey, it’s your treasure! It’s your heart.

If your treasure is in covering your expenses and tithing a bit to charity and perhaps laying a little by for a rainy day, and in treating your body more like a temple than a trendspot, and in focusing on family before friends and values over valuables, well, there will your heart be. Your life will amount to fewer “ka-chings,” and possibly fewer orgasms, and you’ll still wonder, “what is there to eat?” But those other bits, about $6,000 purses, or needing “new” people and resenting being alone…well, you might be lucky enough to by-pass them.

In Advent-time, it is good to remember that the God of Abraham, the Creator of the Stars of Night treasured us…so much so that he sent his heart here, to be broken and shared. Where your treasure is, there too will be your heart. As we indulge in preparations and await the celebration of the Incarnation, think about what you treasure…what you are teaching your kids to treasure, and ask the fountain of all mercy and graces to guide you past the trappings of materialism and body-worship, into what is lasting and solid and faithful. It might be the key to your whole new year. Or years.

Actually, to come full circle, Siggy says it better than I: The emphasis on orgasm has supplanted the emphasis on healthy relationships and healthy sex, in the same way that money and the acquisition of money, have become goal and not the vehicle of what is believed to be a productive and meaningful life.

As that Christmas/holiday anchor drops upon us, reflect upon what a meaningful and productive life is really all about.

America

Faith

Parenting

Previous Post

December 5, 2005

Anchoress head swells...bigger than her hips!

Next Post

December 5, 2005 Buster does Upstate New York

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category "Remaking" Ourselves 'Remaking' America 9/10 Mindset 9/11 trials Abortion ACORN Adoration Advent Advent 2008 Advent 2009 Advent 2010 Alternative Energy Alternative Media America American Catholic Church American Church American Genius Ameridolatry ANCHORESS BOOKSHELF Anglican-Roman Reconciliation Answers & Questions Anti_Semitism Archbishop Hilarion Ayn Rand Bad Mass Barack Obama Baseball Benedict Benedict & Islam Benedict in UK Benedict XVI Benedictine Bill Whittle Birth Control Blogs and Blogging Blogs and Blogging Bloodless Coup Bobby Jindal Bookchat Breitbart Bride at every wedding... Bride at every wedding... Buckley Bullies Bush Bad? Bush Good Buster Capitalism Catholic Fiction Catholic Vocations Catholicism Celibacy Chaput Charitable Stuff Chesterton Chile Chris Christie Christians in Exile Christine O' Donnell Christmas Christmas Gift Ideas Church Hates Science? Church hates women Communion of Saints Compline Conclave 2013 Confession Constitutional Stuff Conversion Crisis & Opportunity Critical Thinking Crooks and Liars Crucible of Faith Cuba Culture of Life Culture of Life/Death Culture of Treason? Dancing Death Dialogue re Islam Dick Meyer Divorce and Remarriage DOJ Domestic Terrorism Dominican Order Don't try me too high Dowd Dumb Democrat moves Dumb GOP moves Economic woe Education Egregious Harry Reid Elder Son Elder Son's Sweet Girlfriend Elderly Election '10 Election '12 Election '16 Election 2004 Election 2006 Election 2008 Election 2010 Election 2016 Elena Kagan Elitism Embryonic Stem Cell Research End Times? English language Enhanced Interrogation Erosion of Rights Eucharist Euthanasia Exorcism Extraordinary Synod Facebook Faith Faith and Reason Faith Friday Faith Perspective Faithful Friday Fascism Again Fascism in America Fatima FCC Feminism Film First Things Forgiveness Fr. James Martin Francis and Islam Francis in America Frassati Fred Thompson Free Speech? Freedom of Worship FutureChurch Global Pandemic GOP Congress Haiti Head Covering Health Care Here and Queer Hermits Heroes Hitchens Holy Spirit Holy Week '09 Holy Week '10 Hoo-Hah & BS Hoo-Hah & BS Icons Illegal Immigration In The Arena Interviews Interwebz Iran Uprising Iraqi Christians ISIL ISIS Islamic State Islamification/Islamofascism Islamification/Islamofascism Isra-El It's all about me! Me! ME! James Burke Jerry Lewis Jesus Christ Joblessness John Boehner John McCain John Paul II John XXIII Juan Williams Just Words Katrina/Rita King is a Fink Latin Mass Leadership Lectio Divina Lent Lent '08 Lent '09 Lent 2010 Lent 2011 Limbaugh Listen to Lizzie Litigious Society Liturgy Liturgy of the Hours Mainstream Media Manliness Marriage Mary Media Excess Medical Merton Michelle Obama Mighty John O' Connor Misc. Miss Ella Missionaries Mitt Romney Monasticism My brother S My Irish Aunties Mystic Monks Nanny Statism Nature NEA Neri New Media Newman Noonan Notre Dame NPR Stuff Nun News Obama Bad? Obama Good? Obama White House Oil Spill Online Retreat '08 Online Retreat Days Oratory Orthodoxy Our Hillary! Parenting Passionists Patheos Patheos Book Club Patrons Paul Ryan Penance Penn Jillette Philosophy PJTV Podcasts Poetry Politics-free zone Pop Culture Pope Emeritus Pope Francis Prayer Predictions Priesthood Pro-Life Public Sector Unions Purgatory Questions about Catholicism Quotes of the Day Quoting the News Race in America rants Recipes Remarried Catholics Reposts by request Retreat thoughts Rome Rudy Giuliani Russia Saints Sarah Palin Scandal Scott Brown SCOTUS Scriptural stuff Secularism Send in the clowns Serving up hot links Sexuality Sherrod Shroud of Turin Sisters and Nuns Social Entrepreneurship Social Media Social Security Socialism doesn't work Sports and Faith Stem Cells Strange Gods Suffering Synod Tea Parties Tea Party Terri Schiavo The 9/11 Commission The Catholic Answer The Constitution The Desert The Fourth Estate The Pelosi The Perpetual Adolescents The Rosary Third Party? Timothy Dolan Touch of evil TSA Tsunami TV/Pop Culture/Music TV/Pop Culture/Music Twitter Uncategorized Unemployment Unintended Consequences US Military Vaginal Musings Vatican Vespers video faves Vile Joe Biden Voter Fraud War by Litigation War on Terror War, What it good for? Why can't weeee be ... World Youth Days Year of Faith Year of the Priest

Select a Month August 2016 July 2016 April 2016 March 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 May 2005 April 2005 March 2005 February 2005 January 2005 December 2004 November 2004 October 2004 August 2004

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

I danced before the ark with all my might, wearing only a linen ephod. Who am I?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Saul Jonathan Solomon David