the house with the golden windows

There was a boy who lived in a house on one side of a valley. On the other side, there was another house, which he saw everyday, but which he had never visited. To him it was the most wonderful house in the world, for when he looked at it every morning it seemed to have windows of gold, and he always called it the House with the Golden Windows.

One day he decided to visit it. He took a picnic lunch and started out to walk across the valley. At last he reached the house on the other side. At the door there was a boy about his own age. This other boy spoke to him: 'Where do you come from?' The boy said, 'I come from that house that you can see across the valley.' And the other boy said at once, 'You're the boy that lives in the House with the Golden Windows. Every evening I see the windows of your house pure gold.'

'But no,' said the first boy, 'you are the one that lives in the House with the Golden Windows.' 'I'm not,' said the second boy, 'it's you who lives there.' By this time it was evening. 'Look! There's your house and the windows are gold.'

Of course, what really happened was that in the morning the sun shone on the house on one side of the valley, so that it looked as if it had golden windows. In the evening the sun shone on the house on the other side, so that it now seemed to have golden windows. Thus each thought that the other's house had golden windows. In other words, we always think that the other person's life is better than our own.

But there is one thing we must always say: 'God made me as I am, and God put me where I am, and God has something he wants me to do just as I am right here.' Our job is not to envy someone else's life, but to make the very best of our own.

- William Barclay, The Old Law and the New Law

"O, beware, my lord, of jealousy/ It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock/ The meat it feeds on." - Iago in Act 3 Scene 3 of Shakespeare's Othello

two kinds of wisdom

"Who is wise and understanding among you? Let him show it by his good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom. But if you harbour bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast about it or deny the truth. Such "wisdom" does not come down from heaven but is earthly, unspiritual, of the devil. For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice.

"But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere. Peacemakers who sow in peace raise a harvest of righteousness." - James 3:13-18 (NIV)