Mal occhio!

One thing for which Franciscan poverty equips one splendidly is enjoying days out (which I sometimes call 'playing tourist'), though one can spend perhaps enough for a coffee. I spent a peaceful few hours reading on Sunday, looking out at the river (which I always enjoy doing), and naturally pretending to be a shopper in nearby stores (which probably fooled no one.) I saw a vendor with goods of which I'd never before heard - all sorts of "Angel Eye" products (jewellery, largely, but clearly also something on the lower spectrum of 'home decor'), which were presented as having a special function of protecting against the evil eye - those dangerous, envious looks!

I should not have been surprised, I suppose. My grandmother had a horn in her home, and I knew people who wore miniatures of same around their necks (often next to the cross), for such protection. If a headache persisted, or constipation, one knew who still knew how to 'pass' the mal occhio and enlisted such services. I blush to admit that, if I feel the hostility which obvious envy (of any kind) brings in others' attitudes, or if I say anything favourable about myself (therefore fearing it will be taken away - one can inadvertantly envy oneself), everyone who knows me is aware that I make the sign of the horns with my outer fingers and immediately, in Italian dialect, say the words to 'burst' the evil eye.

By now, I'm sure, unless you do the same, you are shaking your head at the superstition. Yet I do not know that this, as with other superstitions, is not founded on a truth. Envy towards oneself is hostile - and that which one directs towards others can be a form of idolatry. A dear priest friend of mine, who I hope will not mind my quoting a brief and important fact of which he reminded me, put it well in saying that idolatry (envy, frustration, fear, and rage that we generate by our fascination with the things others seem to have that we do not perceive ourselves as having)is a grandiose form of ingratitude, true denial that we are or have enough, or that God loves us.

I wonder if my fear of the mal occhio is founded in that I have had to fight envy (with anger, my 'principle defect') all of my life. It can be especially subtle amongst those who are a bit bohemian, the more if they have strong religious commitments, and particularly if they are Franciscans (where there is such stress on poverty.) I am by no means one who cares to live in the street, yet my envy is not always easy to detect, because it is not about wanting material riches (well, all right, I envy the old rich, but not those who have houses full of great stuff but no time to enjoy it) , or about covetting my neighbour's spouse (whom I probably find to be a bore), or about wanting fame (Lord have mercy, if I had to worry about being in tabloid headlines, I'd have a bed in Bedlam.)

It is never this blatant, of course (if so, I might recognise it), but it takes different forms. I'm irritated with God at times, because I thought I was giving up so much to serve him... and, had I known the situation I'd be in when I was dismissed from the convent (and that it would be as bad as my dad's, when he had hardly any education and had slaved that I might have my own), I'd have driven off a cliff. I envy the 'old rich' not because I want mansions, servants (...though a charlady would be nice every week), posh gatherings and the like, but because I see them as having had choices, and not being forced into dreadful jobs they hated out of the sort of desperation one has who sold all she had, gave it to the poor, and then found herself chucked out by her community.

I had many gifts as a young woman - for music, the other arts and humanities, writing, lecturing. I'd won awards for some of these things, and had a splendid academic record. My intention was to be a university professor. I'm in the odd situation, at the half century mark when every dream is crushed, that I'm envious of my young self! Lord have mercy, the time I spend tossing about 'if only I'd done this or that differently.' (Yes, typical of the half century mark. Had I ever been married, I would probably be envying my kids.)

I offer prayers of gratitude daily - carefully coached, thanking God for creation, the Incarnation, the resurrection, our deification, the sacraments... because I fear thanking him for my own good fortune. He might smack me for thinking I'm better than someone in Biafra for having more. Mal occhio!

Still, I know, deep down, and will some day come to show in my own practise, with God's help (...he is patient even with those who keep making the sign against the evil eye), that the only place we can meet and serve God is where we are. Once we start looking for a different time and place, we cannot find him if he is staring us in the .... (oh, Lord!) eye. And the remedy for envy is gratitude.