Andy Rooney on Desire

Its funny because I was prepared to blog this morning on desire, and as I watched 60 Minutes last night, it appears that Andy Rooney beat me to it. His whole pitch last night was about how it would be great if science could do something about man's desires. He had some funny jokes about how every day at lunch he always sees 2 cookies and he needs to eat both of them, why can't he just take 1. His thesis was, science has come a long way, why don't they create a pill that will take away our desire. His example taken to the extreme is Tiger Woods, why wasn't he satisfied with 1 beautiful wife. The examples go on and on. Man's desires and his appetites are in some way insatiable. As I was listening to Andy Rooney, it dawned on me that it would be terrible to remove our desires. The beauty of having 2 cookies in front of you and you want both, is first off, lets be grateful that cookies are enjoyable and #2 every time we choose the good, every time we choose only 1 cookie our will is strengthened.

Man's heart is like a great river, when its running inside the banks of that river, everything works fine, when the river runs over the borders, its worries get spread 1 mile wide and an inch deep. That's the beauty of the moral life within the Catholic Faith, when we stay within the heart of the Church our will is strengthened and our desires are directed to the right places.

The answer comes back to gratitude for how God made us, not removing our desires. If we were to take away all desire, we would live in an incredibly boring world, we might have a lot of thin people, but it would be boring, and we wouldn't get the joy of choosing only 1 cookie.