True Value

October 15th, 2014 Posted in writing

Someone told me yesterday that The Price Is Right is still going strong. It’s a TV game show that’s been around literally for decades. All a contestant needs to do is name the correct price for an item without going over the actual price. If they go over, or if their opponent’s guess is closer to the real price without going over, then their opponent wins and they lose. Contestants get a lot of help from the studio audience, who loudly shout out their own guesses, and everyone seems to have a great time, except, of course, for the losers.

It seems that as a culture we are pretty good at knowing how much things cost, and I’ve heard it said that Americans spend more time shopping than doing anything else. But someone also once said that, sadly, we can too easily fall into a trap of knowing the price of everything but the value of nothing.

St. Paul wrote to his congregation in Philippi (chapter 1) that he prayed that they would grow in their knowledge and appreciation of “what really matters,” and St. Ignatius Loyola used to badger his roommate at the University of Paris, Francis Xavier, by quoting Jesus’ question, “What does it profit a person to gain the whole world at the cost of one’s soul?” This isn’t a price question but one far more profound.

Sometimes we recognize the value of things like love or friendship. Sometimes we see the value of life when we see a sunrise or watch a child at play. At still other times, we may have felt the reassuring presence of a loving God who knows us by our names and loves us despite our shortcomings. At all these times and many others we know that the things that really matter carry no price tag but have a value beyond price and are ours for the taking.

  1. One Response to “True Value”

  2. By Tom Schmitt on Oct 24, 2014

    Yes. We have so much clutter in our lives, it gets difficult to see, feel, touch … what’s really important.

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