CURIOSITY? OR DESIRE?
Tuesday of the Thirteenth Week in Ordinary Time
My dear encountered couples:
Was it curiosity that killed Lot’s wife or a desire to return to the city of evil? Whatever it was, it gives us pause to think. Lot and his family were told not to look back at Sodom, their home-town. “Flee for your life! Don’t look back or stop anywhere on the Plain. Get off to the hills at once, or you will be swept away.” they were told. An earthquake, an eruption and burning of the earth, whatever was happening was happening quickly and the best advice was to run for your life and don’t waste time looking back.
When a runner in a race looks back to see how close the other runners are, he loses a bit of his lead. The best advice is, “Keep your eye on the finish line and run like mad for it.” But the temptation is great to look back and see where the other runners are. Temptation to do what is not good for us is often great. And the world is full of temptations that enter our minds.
We must learn to control our minds. Think too long about certain unhealthy things and we just might find ourselves doing them. Looking at pornography is a good example - “dirty pictures” is the common description. Looking at pornographic pictures and reading vivid, descriptive literature can easily impress upon our minds images and thoughts that will stick with us for years to come, maybe for life. They can come back into our minds even when we don’t want them, and at our particularly weak moments.
Even to look out of curiosity at what will never really do us any good can be dangerous. Lot’s wife found that out. Curiosity or desire to return killed her. It can kill us too - spiritually, and forever.
