Dear God,
\nAccording to your friend Luke, you say this:<\/p>\n
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.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
This is good for me to remember as a depressive, because in those times I haven\u2019t taken the road of integrity (three times\u2026 maybe four), I get the bad knot in my stomach, the “I think I\u2019m going to hurl” sensation of guilt that compounds my depression and feeds nuts to my anxiety (which feels like a cage of zoo animals).
\nBecause 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.
\nThat\u2019s why those of us recovering addicts who follow the twelve steps<\/a> 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\u2019s Day parties, where there are no Starbuck\u2019s coffee and laughing children.
\nBut while I know that, it doesn\u2019t keep me from the temptation of cheating on a daily, if not hourly, basis.<\/p>\n
\nMaybe 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.
\nThen again, who needs an image of Thomas Moore when you’ve got a real Mike Leach in your life? This balding spiritual companion<\/a> of mine always knows when I\u2019m up to no good, without my even uttering a word. Do you know why? He used to be a priest. And you can take the friend out of the priest, but you can\u2019t take the priest out of a friend. That man won\u2019t let me off the hook until I\u2019ve corrected the situation and come clean.
\nA 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<\/a>–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).
\nIn my piece, I described a scene where I held a shaking, anxious two-year-old David, <\/a>his starfish hands in mine. I sent the story to Mike.
\n\u201cI LOVE the \u2018starfish hands,\u2019\u201d he replied.
\n“Um. That was the only part that wasn\u2019t mine \u2026 Isn’t it great? I read it in an essay I commissioned for my book, \u2018The Imperfect Mom<\/a>\u2019 and I loved it. That\u2019s not stealing, is it?”
\n“Yes, it is.”
\n“It\u2019s just one word. It can’t be plagiarizing.”
\n“It\u2019s not yours.”
\n“But I can\u2019t come up with anything as ingenious as starfish hands.”
\n“Then say little hands. It\u2019s not yours. You can\u2019t take.”
\n“Damn it. I wish I hadn’t sent it to you.”
\nI changed it to “little hands,” and sent my piece back to Mike.
\n“You done good. I\u2019m proud of you.” I swear he must have been wearing his old collar in that moment.
\nWith ex-priests like Mike in my life, I can\u2019t get away with anything. My conscience walks around like a goody-two-shoes-teacher\u2019s pet. It\u2019s annoying. Even to me.
\nToday\u2019s 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\u2019re supposed to round up), which equates to ten extra dollars.
\nGod, 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\u2019ll give to the poor box or St. Mary\u2019s parish.
\nBut you said no. That the ten dollars wasn\u2019t mine, and even something as small as that can turn cancerous inside my mind and soul\u2014nurturing my depression and feeding nuts to my anxiety\u2014that 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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"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…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-511","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-inspiration-and-prayer"],"yoast_head":"\n
Dear God: On Being Trustworthy in Small Matters - Beyond Blue<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2007\/09\/dear-god-on-being-trustworthy.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Dear God: On Being Trustworthy in Small Matters - Beyond Blue\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"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…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2007\/09\/dear-god-on-being-trustworthy.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Beyond Blue\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2007-09-24T11:00:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Beyond Blue\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Dear God: On Being Trustworthy in Small Matters - Beyond Blue","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2007\/09\/dear-god-on-being-trustworthy.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Dear God: On Being Trustworthy in Small Matters - Beyond Blue","og_description":"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…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2007\/09\/dear-god-on-being-trustworthy.html","og_site_name":"Beyond Blue","article_published_time":"2007-09-24T11:00:00+00:00","author":"Beyond Blue","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2007\/09\/dear-god-on-being-trustworthy.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2007\/09\/dear-god-on-being-trustworthy.html","name":"Dear God: On Being Trustworthy in Small Matters - Beyond Blue","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/#website"},"datePublished":"2007-09-24T11:00:00+00:00","dateModified":"2007-09-24T11:00:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/#\/schema\/person\/47318cdf8063cc052eccff0c99db4e75"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2007\/09\/dear-god-on-being-trustworthy.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2007\/09\/dear-god-on-being-trustworthy.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2007\/09\/dear-god-on-being-trustworthy.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Dear God: On Being Trustworthy in Small Matters"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/","name":"Beyond Blue","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Therese J. Borchard","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/#\/schema\/person\/47318cdf8063cc052eccff0c99db4e75","name":"Beyond Blue","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/45c\/45c6e619a20a364bd981e9dda64eaa02x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/45c\/45c6e619a20a364bd981e9dda64eaa02x96.jpg","caption":"Beyond Blue"},"description":"Therese J. Borchard writes the daily blog, Beyond Blue, on Beliefnet.com. She is the author of Beyond Blue: Surviving Depression & Anxiety and Making the Most of Bad Genes and The Pocket Therapist. You may find her at her personal blog, her website, or you may follow her on Twitter @thereseborchard.","sameAs":["http:\/\/thereseborchard.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/author\/tborchard"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/511","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=511"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/511\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=511"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=511"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}