The Cost

The cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run.”

 Henry David Thoreau, Walden

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There is a cost to everything

Even if its free

“Don’t look at gift horse in the mouth”

If you do you might get a glimpse of the vet bills

Everything we seek

Desire

Hope for

Has a cost.

There is a cost to power

Sometimes to gain it, and keep it

You have to give up critical things

Such as justice

Honesty

Compassion

Equity

Morality

Love

There is cost to wealth

Generosity often goes

As does fairness

And more

So much more

Of course even those things we consider as good

Cost us

What is the cost of generosity?

Or love?

The cost of empathy

And service

It is not easy to enter into another’s pain

Nor is it easy to give sacrificially

It is difficult to risk

To take a chance on another human being

None of this is safe

None of this is wise, from a human perspective

The way of greed and power is a way of great cost

So is the way of love

People died to end fascism

People died to end racism

People died to protect children

People died to promote equity and justice

Jesus died for the cause of love

(after rejecting the way of power and wealth)

There is a cost to everything

But as someone named Jesus once noted

“What good is it if you win the world, if you lose your soul?”

What good is it if you win and win and win

But blur the divine image

Distance yourself from the Sacred

And end up

Well, desperate

Grasping

Lying

Bullying

What good is it?

If I am going to pay a cost

I want to pay the cost that goes with

Forgiveness

Hospitality

Acceptance

Compassion

Generosity

And yes

Love