Cupiditas

Unfettered capitalism

has cupiditas—

not holy longings,

not the ache

that births justice

or bends the soul in prayer—

but the kind

that consume.

Insatiable.

Like a she-wolf

that prowls the parched earth,

lean with famine,

fat with hunger.

She is mother to a thousand cravings.

Each one dressed in plastic,

sold in pixels,

delivered at speed.

She names herself desire—

but she does not love.

She devours.

I have heard her gospel:

You are not enough.

But we can sell you the illusion

that you are.

Buy this.

Earn that.

Click here.

Obey.

She takes my cupiditas—

the true ones—

and corrupts them.

Turns my longing for communion

into addiction.

My thirst for justice

into ambition.

My ache for beauty

into vanity.

She does not stop.

Her appetite births systems.

Empires.

Algorithms.

Debt.

Her hunger strips the forests bare,

burns the oceans dry,

chokes the air with ash.

Her hunger makes the poor poorer,

the earth emptier,

the future uncertain.

But I remember

another wilderness—

and another hunger.

A man with dust on his feet

and scripture on his lips.

He faced her too.

Refused her bread.

Refused her throne.

Walked out

starving

but free.

So now,

with all my fractured desires,

I come to the margins,

to the place where the tables turn,

where the wolf is named

and the Kingdom whispered.

Here,

I learn to hunger again—

not for gold,

but for God.

Not for more,

but for mercy.

Not for the endless scroll,

but for the still voice

calling me

home,

and a hunger for justice

that cannot be sated

until the earth is healed,

and all are made whole.

- Rev’d Jon Swales