Envy and love

Going through the Divine Comedy again. What does it say about me that my favorite tends to be the Purgatorio? The Paradiso is certainly grand and lovely, but something about the earthly Purgatorio attracts my feeling more. Perhaps it's because I don't know what it's like to live in perfection; I only know what it is to strive to be better.

At the center of each, the Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso, Dante calls attention to a key concept about that place. In hell the center is a vast void, basically following the line of thinking that sin is a "lack" of goodness; it is emptiness. Sin makes humans less (which is basically the premise of all the souls in hell; they have chosen to be less than what God created in them). When we sin, we decrease our humanity and our potential.

At the center of the Purgatorio is one of my favorite concepts from the Divine Comedy, something quite reflective of human nature. Up the spiral of Purgatory, as the sinners repent for their flaws in life, they must work their way through the seven sins, or whichever applied to them. The souls in life that were envious repent by having their eyes sewn shut. (That's not the part I believe). But the point about sewing their eyes shut is so they cannot see and be envious of others. Envy or "invidia" is better understood in Dante as wishing others misfortune or feeling ill will toward someone. It can be in terms of material things or immaterial. For example, if I felt envious of someone's new car, I would secretly wish for it to have problems. Then I would experience satisfaction and perhaps even joy at the bad luck of the buyer. That's envy. And to Dante, it is one of the darkest sins because it wishes for pain and failure in the world.

The sinners doing penance for envy cure their hearts by feeling charity or love toward others. The antidote for envy is good will. It is a focus on what can be shared and increased, rather than what is limited and depleted. I may want a new car for myself, but if someone else gets one and I don't, I do not wish any harm toward the person. I am happy for him or her. I do not see another's gain as a failure to myself. I realize that life is not a zero sum game where I am trying to win while everyone else loses. Instead, feeling charity tends to focus on things that are increased by giving. Knowledge and love are two things that do not diminish when you share them. If you teach someone something, you don't lose what you knew. Instead two people now have that valuable information. And as with love and affection, the more you give, the more is created and even returned to you. That's the dynamic of charity and the dynamic of moving toward heaven. It's something I wish was more common in the world.