I came across the first three words (spelled frontward) in an article in the NY Times this morning by Frank Rich called The Rove Da Vinci Code.  I found this to be a review of the reception of the Da Vinci Code, THE MOVIE, and understood most of it although I am still a little vague about what the book actually was about.  It was the three words, “greed, lust and sex” that caused me to do some thinking and it was not about the Da Vinci Code or the way Hollywood decided to decode it and bring it to the screen.  The presence of those three words, however, brought to mind their everlasting presence among us and our accepting the last two words as eternally present in our midst.  I just am perverse enough to continue to think that GREED is worse than lust and sex.  I am principally opposed to greed because t it costs us while lust and sex are virtually free.  In fact, if more people would concentrate on lust and sex and settle matters for themselves then government would not have to come into the picture to act as moral cops with a whole court system in order to make peace between aggrieved parties.

I have written extensively about greed in other essays and I do not want to overload our brains thinking about why greed is so bad.  Well, we never have enough, do we?  We always want more.  Unlike lust and sex which are briefly satisfied in performing acts and then going away as we age, greed is always there; unsatisfied.

I am most happy with windfalls (sllafdniw).  This is an old term that most of my readers will not know for we are beyond the need to burn branches expeditiously fallen from trees to light our way, keep us warm and cook our food.  The ancients who lived by fire burned up forests that are gone forever, except, perhaps, in places like Israel. Israel plants trees as a matter of faith, need and a wish to return to Biblical days when their hills were covered with green and they could trade with Lebanon for the cedars that were instrumental in the erection of their Temple in Jerusalem.

If you ever had to cut wood to the size of your fireplace and then chop it into kindling and smaller pieces to burn a long time you will know that a windfall is much lighter a load for the provider of fuel for home consumption.  I once had a six foot high and twenty foot long wall against the back boundary of my home in New Jersey that I had constructed not from windfall wood alone, but from wave tossed driftwood tossed up on the beaches of Long Branch.  It was a lot of work collecting but I lusted after the free heat generated from my fireplace that was in constant action during the cold months.  Lust, in that sense, was understandable.  Sex is good and in the right conditions mighty satisfying.  But, GREED remains a problem yet to be dealt with by employing an intelligent design.