WHAT’S IN YOUR WALLET? [M, 1-25-21]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter

WHAT’S IN YOUR WALLET?                    [M, 1-25-21]

Some bank or credit card company or such has a series of ads in which they ask, “What’s in your wallet?”

At the moment, there are about fifty dollars in my wallet that have been there for ten

months, because I have been no place where I could spend them.

No problem; I am patient about the things I have in my wallet, for you never know…

For many years, I carried both a guitar pick and a basketball inflating needle in my wallet. I did not want to miss a chance to play basketball just because the ball was flat, and I did not want to miss a chance to sing just because the guitar player had no pick. I carried them every day for about forty years. In all those years, each one was needed only once.

I gave the pick to a guitar player who actually needed one in a hurry, and I gave up on the inflating needle because I could no longer get the ball to the basket from the free throw line.

Forty years, and each one got used only once. But there was a time we got to sing because of that pick, and there was a time we got to play because of that needle. The payoff was well worth the burden of the carry.

John Robert McFarland

A wise man was asked, “What is the difference between ignorance and indifference?” “I don’t know, and I don’t care,” he answered.