What We Value

At the family Christmas dinner I asked my nephews, all smart and educated lads, about NFT's and cryptocurrency. They agreed that NFT's are just a fad, soon to be worthless, but hedged on bitcoin. So I asked them what is it? Oh, digital gold one said; I replied that's only 1/2 true--it's digital but unlike gold has no existence outside the O's and 1's of a computer program. Well, they hemmed and hawed so I moved on, saying nothing in this world has intrinsic value, it is only what we assign it at the time--and that can and often does change. And often it seems downright crazy: $50 K for one Bitcoin that not so long ago cost a tiny fraction of a penny; many millions for paintings that are so abstract or just plain ugly, with no meaning at all that I can discern [of course I'm not an art critic or dealer with a living to make]; and a pair of Michael Jordan's smelly sneakers sold for $1.5 million! They all protested that Michael Jordan will always be famous, and I asked , how do they know that? Most famous people are soon forgotten after they die, or even while alive. And some great artists and writers never get the credit due: nobody wanted to buy Van Gogh's paintings while he lived; Moby Dick sold so poorly that Melville gave up as a writer; and nobody even knew about Emily Dickinson until 20 years after her death. And the value we place changes with circumstance. I asked the boys: if you're in a desert with a bag of gold but dying of thirst, and I came along with a bottle of water, how much would you pay me to save your life? For some reason they didn't want to answer that, and I understand. We all want to believe that what we own and what we are has innate value, but it doesn't-- not to nature, which is as happy to kill us as to feed us, as we've seen with the pandemic, and not to the Universe, which not being sentient, doesn't even know we exist. That does not mean we are not deeply valued, of course by family and friends, but perhaps even more profoundly by Someone who knows us completely, every thought, feeling, action, we've ever had, something so remarkable that if we knew it, we would see we're just shadows to our parents, spouses, children, as they are shades of the ultimate reality to us--for we cannot see the soul, ours or another's, only God can. 50 years ago I learned everything I valued in THIS world, including my life, was only partial. That is what I think Jesus came to show us: this world is just a taste of Eternity--His gift to us.