There’s a way of looking at the world I have noticed myself succumbing to, that when I realized it was starting to happen, I fought it. I still fight it. It’s a form of utilitarianism, I think, how useful anything is, what it means to the bottom line. Not just money, either, but for instance, when I’m nice to someone, the thought creeps up of a little gauge whose needle moves in the positive of what I can expect back from them, how much credit I have in their consideration. It’s happening to me everywhere, thinking of things what cash value they have instead of their own intrinsic worth, “cash value” not necessarily being monetary, but rather a philosophy (for example, sex would have a high cash value for most people, even if they never pay money for it). I don’t like it.

Jesus said that we must enter Heaven as children, and I think that’s what that dislike in me is coming from. Facing facts, facing realities: growing up: in the name of practicality, we sometimes compromise more than we should. And it is not as I would, for it is too much an accommodation to the cynicism of experience. When we were children we liked things simply, did not have some sort of ulterior barometer. We learn, as we get older, about what things are of value and what things do not; we learn about things like money. And some of us are eaten away by the compromises we make — this is what I’m fighting against. It is the first and last line of defense, to make a stand within yourself.

Too, Jesus told us, “For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?” [Matthew 16:26] Each compromise we make, we are doing just that — exchanging pieces of our soul for their cash value. Sometimes the bits are so small we don’t even notice. And sometimes, we don’t realize how much of our soul we traded away until we look in the mirror, and don’t recognize who it is that is looking back. This is where I must stand, for there is an accepted dollar value for every piece of our integrity if we surrender it; but if we do not, it stays as it was given us: of infinite worth.