09/30/2024
One of the most valuable lessons I learned from this man is that great wealth exists in poverty, and great poverty exists in wealth. Our politics bombard us with messages of scarcity, when in reality, our abundance is unrivaled in human history. Our faith teaches us to love God and to love our neighbors as ourselves, because the whole law, Jesus says, is summed up in just these two. If we are honest, however, we must admit that while Jesus shortened the list of the laws we are to follow, we actually prefer the longer list, because from it we can choose the ones to which we can easily adhere and thus flaunt our worth. Maybe that is why we feel so intoxicated when we place the Ten Commandments in our public squares and in our public schools even as we ignore the widow and the orphan, reject the stranger and the migrant, and mock those who don't look like us or love like us. Every day I check the market; every day I take stock of what I have, but when I see the light in the eyes of these children, I realize with some sadness that I don't have nearly as much as they do.
