Archive for the ‘life’ Category
The Moral Equivalent of Starvation
By David Wilkerson
In 1978, my wife and I were an unlikely pair for poverty. I was an officer in the Navy; she was a schoolteacher in Jacksonville, Florida. For our age and time, we were well paid. We had a brand-new baby, and we left our jobs so that I could attend graduate school.
Why would anyone do that? For both of us, it was the next logical step. I believed then — and still believe now — that the Almighty, our God, had a purpose to fulfill in the world and was inviting us to take part in it. Specifically, to take on the role of a minister in the church.
We saved our money, but not enough. Not long after we arrived, I found part-time work during the day and more part-time work at night. I was in school full-time, holding down two part-time jobs. Beth, the mother of a newborn, had few alternatives. Yet the need for rent and food drove her to take a part-time job in the campus post office. So there we were — the three of us. The neighbor watched the baby when she was at work, and I was rarely home.
That still wasn’t enough. I applied for, and we received, food stamps. When I say I felt degraded and incompetent, it’s an understatement. Going to the grocery store and supplementing our payment with food stamps was excruciating and humiliating.
But without those food stamps, our meager meals would have been calorie-free.
Today, families like ours will again face that kind of hunger. Someone will say they should “get a job.” Someone will say they need to give up their avocado toast. And someone — there’s always someone — will say something unproductive and useless.
The individuals responsible for the ongoing vitality of the modern equivalent of food stamps, SNAP, have decided to use this program as a bargaining chip in their political gamesmanship.
It is self-evident that the administration and Congress are profoundly divided. But what also seems self-evident is that division has taken priority over need. Each side seeks to portray the other as the one responsible for the calamity about to descend on the most vulnerable in our society.
Let me name a few: an old man, feeble from advancing disease; a three-year-old toddler; a nursing mother; and yes, perhaps someone who took advantage of the system. But of that number, the overwhelming majority will suffer severe consequences when the program runs out of funds.
Someone will point out that there are other emergency funds available — but that misses the point.
The point is this: the only losers in this contest between Congress and the administration will be Americans. Not just those who live on the brink, but also those of us who choose to accept such behavior from our elected government.
While the most vulnerable may eat less — and eat less often — the rest of us will find our consciences further degraded. That is the moral equivalent of starvation.
I do not imagine for a moment that this little essay will have any effect on the players or the partisans. But I will not be silent.
I do not agree. I do not approve.
Shame on you.
FRIENDSHIP
Why did the Scout bring a ladder to his friends’ campout?
Because he heard friendship was on a whole new level!
Ever have a friend who can lift your spirits even when their own sky is overcast? The kind who seems to carry a little lantern of light just bright enough for two?
Lately, I’ve been thinking about the Scout Law—“A Scout is helpful, a Scout is kind.” Those two alone could heal half the world if we’d let them. Kindness and helpfulness are the tools by which we raise the human spirit.
Not long ago, when life felt heavy and uncertain, a few friends reached out. One offered quiet words of care, another offered practical help—“anything, even the silly household chores.” Somehow that kind of specificity opened a door in my heart. It made it easier to imagine saying yes to help when I needed it.
It reminded me that when we offer to help, it’s not the size of the gesture that matters, but its shape—those small, concrete acts that whisper, “I see you.”
I’ve tried to live that way myself. Bringing a meal, lending a hand, hauling a load, or simply showing up. Not heroic, just human. Little things that make life gentler for someone else.
So that’s my musing today: Find a way—any way—to lift someone’s spirit. Do a small thing that makes a big difference.
Because in the end, friendship might just be God’s way of reminding us that chores and grace often travel in the same truck bed. 🚚
Time Travel
On the strange elasticity of years and the tenderness of realizing how swiftly they pass.
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A child sits on the floor, lost among his toys.
His mother says, It’s time to go now. Put them away.
In his imagination he is already moving—
tidying, obeying, swift as thought.
But to her eyes nothing has changed.
Seconds pass. The command comes again, sharper this time.
And when she scolds him for not listening,
he is bewildered.
How could she not see?
He had begun the instant she asked.
A child does not measure time.
He lives inside it like a fish in water,
the current invisible, infinite.
An adult measures it out—seconds, minutes, hours—
a metronome against which patience ticks and love frays.
Between them lies not disobedience,
but two different kinds of existence.
And then, one day, the parent grows older.
The tempo steadies, then slips.
Days become weeks, weeks turn to months.
The seasons collapse into one another
like pages turning too quickly to read.
He watches grandchildren at play
and says the thing the young never believe:
Enjoy this while you can. These days will be gone before you know it.
For this too is a kind of time travel—
to stand in one moment and remember another,
to scold the child you once were,
and to hear yourself answer back
from somewhere deep in the years.
And when at last you understand
how swiftly it all has gone,
you smile—
not for joy exactly,
but for the tenderness of knowing
you were there,
and it was enough.
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Reflection:
We never meant to become travelers in time; it happened while we were looking away. Yet somehow love leaves footprints in both directions, marking where we stood when it still felt like forever.
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The House of Guilt and Grief
Guilt is a funny thing. It insists on living with grief in the same house, windows shuttered, doors locked, the air thick with the smell of mold. I once thought I could tidy it up—dust the corners, polish the shutters, pretend the place was fit to live in.
But memory is not meant to be stored in stale rooms. The only way I know now is to raze the house. Let shame stand naked in daylight. Let the sun bleach what it will. Then love, and love alone, remains.
The irony, of course, is that I spent years paying rent on a place I should have burned down long ago.
Chores Not Done
The air, thickened and over-warm, cautions against exertion. A brief and once beguiling call to fix up, repair, restore is but a whimper. In a sparse corner of my imagination I hear that whimper and recoil. It’s too damp and the soon-to-fall rain dissuades me from sawing wood or clearing debris. I retreat to the table where a seat awaits. The air inside, comparatively cooler, is seductive. I shall not work says my first yawn. Indeed not, says the second. I’m done, says my nodding head.
On a whim... 