Dear God,
According to your friend Luke, you say this:
The person who is trustworthy in very small matters is also trustworthy in great ones; and the person who is dishonest in very small matters is also dishonest in great ones. If, therefore, you are not trustworthy with dishonest wealth, who will trust you with true wealth? If you are not trustworthy with what belongs to another, who will give you what is yours? No servant can serve two masters. He will either hate one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other.
This is good for me to remember as a depressive, because in those times I haven’t taken the road of integrity (three times… maybe four), I get the bad knot in my stomach, the “I think I’m going to hurl” sensation of guilt that compounds my depression and feeds nuts to my anxiety (which feels like a cage of zoo animals).
Because even the teeny-weeny, seemingly-innocent lies and deceptions have a way of gradually swelling and sprouting malignant growths that eventually threaten my physical, emotional, and spiritual health.
That’s why those of us recovering addicts who follow the twelve steps are so ruthless in our honesty. Lies lead to relapse. Relapse leads to self-destruction. Self-destruction leads to a place right next to death: a sterile and lonely corner of the earth where no one hosts Halloween or Valentine’s Day parties, where there are no Starbuck’s coffee and laughing children.
But while I know that, it doesn’t keep me from the temptation of cheating on a daily, if not hourly, basis.
Maybe I should hang a picture of St. Thomas Moore on my computer like writer Christopher Buckley does. Whenever he wants to fudge a quote, he looks up at St. Thomas, and unfudges it.
A few months back, I wrote a blog post about the one scripture verse that bothers me more than the others: the words the prophet Simeon used–as he took the baby Jesus into his arms on the day the Catholic Church celebrates as the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord–to foretell Mary’s sorrow: “And a sword will pierce your own soul, too” (Luke 2:35).
In my piece, I described a scene where I held a shaking, anxious two-year-old David, his starfish hands in mine. I sent the story to Mike.
“I LOVE the ‘starfish hands,’” he replied.
“Um. That was the only part that wasn’t mine … Isn’t it great? I read it in an essay I commissioned for my book, ‘The Imperfect Mom’ and I loved it. That’s not stealing, is it?”
“Yes, it is.”
“It’s just one word. It can’t be plagiarizing.”
“It’s not yours.”
“But I can’t come up with anything as ingenious as starfish hands.”
“Then say little hands. It’s not yours. You can’t take.”
“Damn it. I wish I hadn’t sent it to you.”
I changed it to “little hands,” and sent my piece back to Mike.
“You done good. I’m proud of you.” I swear he must have been wearing his old collar in that moment.
With ex-priests like Mike in my life, I can’t get away with anything. My conscience walks around like a goody-two-shoes-teacher’s pet. It’s annoying. Even to me.
Today’s debacle was this: My tutoring session at the Naval Academy went 29 minutes, which means I get paid for a half hour. Had the session lasted 31 minutes, I could have billed for an hour (because we’re supposed to round up), which equates to ten extra dollars.
God, I thought that my plan made perfect sense. I go with the 31 minutes, get the extra cash, and we split it: I get my cappuccino and raspberry muffin, and you get your five bucks that I’ll give to the poor box or St. Mary’s parish.
But you said no. That the ten dollars wasn’t mine, and even something as small as that can turn cancerous inside my mind and soul—nurturing my depression and feeding nuts to my anxiety—that if I pursue a virtuous path, you will take care of all my concerns, just as you do for the lilies of the field and the birds. That if I am trustworthy in small matters, you will entrust me with bigger things.
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