Church fathers (Evagrios and Aquinas) associated envy with sadness — seeing men as torn between charity and grief over another's good. They also discerned in it a tendency to yearn for a time or place other than the here and now.

People sometimes confuse envy and jealousy. The readings from Genesis and John show both. Envy concerns another's power, possessions or position while jealousy is brought on by threats from a rival to one's relationship with another.

A member said he felt both envy and jealousy involve a disconnection from God and community. Another member pointed out that psychologists look on both as constructive components of childhood development as long as they are not quashed prematurely and thus frozen, but are allowed to have their transitory sway.

This comment provided a key for our evaluation of envy and jealousy in Christian Science. They both represent desire and thus prayer. "They can be treated as the small ego's way of reaching out for and surrendering to a Higher Power." Our synonym for the week is the perfect one for this operation: the perfect Principle of all being.

The same approach can be used when we feel we're the victim of someone else's envy or jealousy. "As a student of Christian Science, I can take that person's envy as prayer and then see him as he is in Truth, having all good. His very own good, which does not infringe on mine."

A member remarked on the paradox that envy and jealousy can be a malpractice against one's divinely established individuality if not handled properly in Science, while they are a spur to spiritual growth and experience if we see through them to the realities just at hand. "But isn't that true of all human appearances?"

The somewhat complicated issue of currying envy came up. Do we do things or have things or associate with certain people to spark envy or jealousy in others? Conspicuous consumption is turning out to be quite dangerous — your Rolex or Mercedes might be snatched along with your life! Even more troubling to us was the seeming oblivion of some hefty consumers to the reactions they might cause in others or their inability to think of the community as they trash and pollute the atmosphere with their lavish lifestyle.

What if one truly loves fine autos, dwellings and adornment? Perhaps these can be relished in some reasonable way — any envy evoked being handled as sin-desire-prayer-fulfillment. But one member told of his once visiting the ruins of the Malkata Palace, Amenophis III's modest living quarters and throne room, set beside a huge and glorious temple to the gods. What! Egypt's Louis XV reduced to such humble surroundings, when he clearly had all the means possible to have a home of distinction! Well, our member came away with a lesson — keep the human requirements in check and let the divine realities flourish.

What if one has a certain talent which others do not have? Should it be kept hidden? That would go against the Bible and common sense. One member quoted Kahlil Gibran: "Don't limp before the lame." Could we see the talent and its exercise as sharing with others and not a way of lording it over them?

A member who MC's nightclub acts has a friend whose voice and musicianship are magnificent. One could easily envy her, yet there is something so gracious and giving in her singing that others feel blessed by her presence and transported by her performance. "Envy doesn't have a chance."

One member reported on work he had done during the week on what psychologists (specifically Melanie Klein) call "defenses against envy". Since it is so painful and threatening for a child to feel and accept the implications of, it's shunted off to other more acceptable feelings. Until the real feelings are accessed and felt, there can be no recovery in Science. He worked on two defenses.

1) Devaluation. For decades he has scorned parties and other seemingly valueless social occasions. This week he uncovered his primal envy as a mere tot, watching his glamorous socialite parents prepare for evenings, leaving him home! Oh the envy and abandonment he felt, but quickly displaced unto anger and devaluation. He went on to spoil the parents' vision of him as a budding socialite and has always when possible avoided"meaningless merriment". The sheer outlandishness of his comments alerted him that lots of envy was being covered up here.

2) Idealization and sexualization. As an awkward and overweight teenager he envied football players and other athletes, but avoided these feelings by idealizing and sexualizing them, while also running them down (i.e., that other defense, devaluation). He has had now decades of this kind of thing and says he's glad at last to have located the underlying envy.

Here's how our member concluded his exposition. "Well, once I've fully felt the devastation of this envy, I'll seek what the desire/prayer is that's hidden here. I doubt I'll become a big partygoer or crave the company of the unattractive, but at least I'll be rid of some awful drives and free to choose what makes sense in light of my own being."

We talked of what part envy plays in homophobia. How much animosity towards us is driven by non Gay people observing all the rules as they see them, doing the right things, and yet here are these Gay people getting rights to live and flourish. Scratch the surface and we get plenty of envy. Standing porter at the door, we convert it to desire-prayer-fulfillment. Fulfillment to live their God-based reality, not just some inauthentic religiously-based version of it.

What of heterophobia? Hmm. The fact that the word barely exists may indicate immense envy beneath. But we ran out of time and couldn't delve into it. Homework anyone?

Next on our lists of God's synonyms and the seven deadly sins come Life and Gluttony.