Trapped.
A hummingbird flails against the open glass slider—inside the house.
Dare I usher this manic three-inch wonder outside?
Inching closer, newspaper in hand, I cradle and lift until—with a cranky chirk—it swivels midair, then rockets away.
In this moment there is life and food
for future years. —Wm. Wordsworth
+++
I just reread this old journal entry because now, 19 years later, several Beija flors, or flower kissers, have converged on our new feeder. Iridescence shimmers, flushing copper to gold, then green.
The green arrests me.
Last night I read exceptionally good news about a fellow writer’s success. In a hummingbird heartbeat, I felt threatened. Territorial. Envious.
And here I am. Jealousy I don’t want to feel and fail to swallow constricts my throat. My soul.
O the tempers and vanities that beset me.
Ego vibrates, carping after the inaccessible, like a beak against glass.
Jealousy escalates. If I’m honest, I want to win. I want to impress.
Like hummingbirds at the feeder, my thoughts bicker and bully, sideswipe and joust for position.
My ego plunges an all-or-nothing beak into any bright opening, no matter how small.
Sometimes I struggle to discern truth in the world.
This feels like truth:
Don’t be impressed with yourself.
Don’t compare yourself with others.
…take responsibility for doing
the creative best you can with your own life.*
When feeling trapped by comparisons, these are words where my soul can hover.
God gently slips his newspaper beneath my beating thoughts, lifting me safely, cleanly, up and away.
How do you disarm envy?
*Galations 6, The Message
I heard at a younger age, “There will always be someone better than you. A better housewife, a better cook. And you will always be better than someone else. So, try to be the best YOU, you can be.”
I think comparison is defiantly from this world and our enemy brought it with him when he compared himself to God.
It’s hard not to compare when you look at the outside. It’s a discipline I’m still working on!
Becky, thank you. Your opening quote brings back my mother’s voice. She spoke similar words to me many a time. And how true they’ve proved to be over the course of my life!
I’m also struck this morning by your choice of adverb in the next paragraph, “defiantly” as opposed to the more expected “definitely.” The clarity and history contained in that apt word lays bare the whole issue.
Definitely a discipline I want to embrace again and again: to see past the “outside” to the heart—the other person’s and my own and God’s as well!
So grateful to read your response this morning.
Thank you, Laurie, for your sweet spirit of honesty and this superbly meaningful post. That hummingbird provides a perfect metaphor for how God is releasing me also from envy. Of course, he guides me with his Word (another type of news-on-paper!), reminding me that I am his workmanship, too, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for me to do (Ephesians 2:10). It’s just that “my” works are different than So-and-So’s and perhaps not as public, but just as important to my Father’s overall plan. He also uses other means to chip away at envy. Just this morning in Jesus Always by Sarah Young I read; “Don’t worry about being successful in the eyes of the world. Bearing fruit in My kingdom means doing the good things planned for YOU” (emphasis added). With you, Laurie, I want to do my creative best with my life, guided and empowered by the Spirit!
Nancy, what excellent passages, wonderfully relevant to seeing ourselves and our work through God’s perspective: the perfect tool for vamoosing envy. Gosh, I am glad to read them today. And the words from Sarah Young as well. Thank you for sharing your help and your heart. I appreciate you so much!
And I, you, Laurie!
All smiles at reading this, my online sister and fellow-wordsmith!
Creativity, as seen through the eyes of the receiver of the gift. “You are here! You came to visit me today!” The I AM, blending, uniting with my soul. My heart my spirit, finding light shining through the Flower Kisser
Dear Roberta, such lovely responsiveness, such contagious, deeply felt gladness and gratitude in your words. That’s how I want to live each day. To think the simple noun visit can hold profound encounter expands my thinking this morning. “Blending, uniting, finding light” . . . Thank you for expressing it exactly this way.
Even when you question your motives – I always see the best in your soul, and Laurie – green isn’t always an ugly color.
Susie, thank you for looking at me and my writing with such kindness and understanding, seeing the best alongside the struggles. And yes, you’re right about green—a color that feels wonderfully complex to me in its breadth of possible meanings. I’m so grateful for your presence here. Thank you.
Laurie,
Thank you for the beautiful reflection on creativity and jealousy. Just what I needed to hear today!
Lou, I’m so glad you found some beauty here amid my angst. And I’m grateful it spoke to you today. I hesitated about whether to publish this one. I’m glad now that I took the risk. Blessings on you! 🙂
Breathe. This is such a hard one. For me, jealousy often comes over something I want and don’t have (at least enough for my sense of pride or accomplishment). Something I like to think I’m good at, and wish I was the best at.
Simon Sinek has been talking about this lately, and will have a new book out. He says there are two types of games. Finite – where there is one winner – like a card or board game. Infinite – where the goal is to keep the game going. In an infinite game, there is no ultimate winner. There is only the ability to keep playing, and eventually let others take over when we can’t play any more.
I see jealousy as trying to win an infinite game. And I do this more often than I’d like to admit to myself. When I do, I see how fruitless it is. I wish I didn’t feel this way at all. I wish I could simply appreciate another facet of the beauty God has created – marvel at His creativity.
As someone here has already said, an advantage to getting older is that I release it more quickly than I used to. So though those thoughts come and try to poison me, the toxin doesn’t have time to travel through my entire system before God roots it out.
Kathleen, can you hear my empathic groan? For me, wanting to excel, “to be the best” carries ongoing risk. If only I could jettison it completely!
I’m very interested in Sinek’s longer view on creative life, as well as the language (finite/infinite) he places around it. Heartening and freeing. Like you, I wish spontaneous celebration of the other person’s accomplishments was always my first response. Sometimes, it is.
You and Larry both mentioned aging as beneficial in the area of jealousy. It’s true for me, too. Increased life experience has helped me (most times) to awaken sooner to jealousy sinking its hooks into me. Which feels like progress. And always grace.
Miserable as that day was (the “news” coinciding with an unexpected rejection that leveled me), I’m grateful to have seen afresh how much I need continued healing when it comes to motives and creativity and my ideas of what constitutes success. I really like your description of God rooting out the toxin before it poisons the entire system. Vivid and so hopeful in outlook! Thank you, Kathleen.
Wow, Kathleen, I love the concept of playing the infinite game. It reminds me of a time that I experienced jealousy over another’s book release that was similar to mine. The green-eyed monster struggled in my breast to overtake the grace of God. As you noted, as I grow older it is increasingly easier to let go and recognize my fleshly, depraved emotions and find God’s answer to my displeasing reactions. Always, bless Him, He consoles and counsels me, and washes my heart of the ungratefulness of jealousy. Niki
Dear Niki, just had to chime in. I’m struck by the piercing exactitude of your phrase “the ungratefulness of jealousy.” This feels like another clue in pinpointing jealousy sooner. Thank you!
Maybe, too, jealousy is rather like a bird frantically beating its wings and flying headlong into a glass window. That hurts. Why not look through the glass-barrier of jealousy to behold the beauty beyond? Or better yet, take that opening and fly beyond it, and soar above this harmful pettiness to one’s *own* heights? This is my postscript. My fuller post is below. 🙂 You always make me think, Laurie. A greater compliment I could not give.
L
L
Great postscript! And so good to know the hard thinking that goes into each post invites reflection. What a marvelous encouragement that is, my friend.
I love that quote, and wondered where I’d read it: Ah, Message Bible. Why is it, Laurie, that writers and sopranos get jealous and, sadly, often caddy? I’m so blessed now to be in a pro Bach chorus, where there is little if no jealousy. I’ve never seen it on display at any rate. Everyone is gracious and complimentary. And that has been an antidote to combatting the green-eyed (or green-throated as the case may be!) monster for me. I lavish praise on someone whose work I admire with compliments–not phony, saccharine, ingratiating ones–but genuine, because I truly admire their artistry. Come to think of it, I’ve complimented your work endlessly! 🙂 Don’t you think too that we often become jealous of those with whom we share similar gifts? What care I for successful politicians or mathematicians? I’d never run for office, and I can’t add two plus two! But give me a great singer, a lyrical author, a poet . . . ah, there’s the gold-turned-green rub. So let me continue to lavish you with well-deserved praise for the beauty, artistry, and depth of your work. I want to love it, because it is noteworthy and not be jealous of it or you. That would kill the joy I experience when I visit here. And God showed me one day when I was lamenting the success of a well-known lyrical author, that it wasn’t so much that I resented her work or her personally, but rather that I wanted the chance to be able to write for publication too (my last book was published in 2004). God spoke deep into my heart that He is a beautiful, infinite Diamond, with multiple, intricate facets, and that it would take many authors (artists, musicians, whomever) to reflect but one tiny facet of all that He is, and never duplicate that particular facet. There is room enough for each one to shine their lights on *Him*! That has really helped me! Thank you for sharing, and I adore hummingbirds. Don’t ask me about how I almost blasted one with a super-streaming can of Raid, thinking it was a big wasp, before I knew better (we were out at our cabin in the woods). This city girl hadn’t had a chance yet to gaze upon iridescent wonder!
Love this post. Love all your posts. Love you!!! And this is my unvarnished truth!
xoxo
Lynn
Lynn, you’re so right. Thanks for pointing this out. When envy intersects with our longings, no wonder we’re extra vulnerable; no wonder it’s hard to see straight sometimes. Your image of the faceted gem cuts right to the heart of it for me today. Like you, I’m math-averse, but I’m boggled by imagined numbers as I consider myriad voices in multiple places throughout time reflecting “but one tiny facet.” Wow. What a great way to regain a sense of proportion. Thanks for sharing that with me. And thanks for repeatedly cheering me on with such love. xo
Oh Laurie: Move over, my friend. ‘Tis the bane of our creative selves. Thank you for your honesty. God loves us.
Linda Jo, I’m chuckling. You too? I keep hoping I’ll grow out of it. So good to be reminded of God’s love, thank you!
Always needing to acknowledge and confess this sometimes stealth, sometimes screaming sin.
Susan, amen to that! I found myself doing just that several times before I could breathe freely again and write about it. I’ve never pictured jealousy as a continuum before. Your vivid wording——”stealth to screaming”——makes it visual and all the more sobering. Thank you!
How do we disarm ? We grow old ….lol
Larry, I love your sense of humor. And aging becomes something to look forward to if these skirmishes lessen! 🙂
❤️
Susan, thanks for lending your expertise on this as well as your love and understanding!