Well, I wish I wish someone had taught me peacefully at 16 what that minute of violence at 43 taught me: that people are extremely vulnerable to injury unless they know how to avoid violence and how to defend themselves should violence befall them. I’m amazed that I’ve lived 43 years without realizing just how vulnerable we are. Maybe that naivety has been a blessing. But it’s left me with a dangerous deficit of knowledge. Only after being robbed with a gun in my face do I realize it. I shudder when I think of what I don’t know. It feels like waking up on the edge of a deep chasm, only inches away from almost falling in.  I’m grateful to be awake.

“The thief comes only to steal, kill and destroy. I have come that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”-John 10:10

For several years I’ve been struggling with career, finances and the usual measures of success. That struggle has come at the expense of my family, my health and some of my moral principles.  This way of living has become, in a sense, like that mugger last week with a gun in my face—a thief stealing from me, stealing relationships, principles and threatening even to steal my life.

I’ve been processing so much since being robbed, but one of the clearest lessons is that I have my values upside down. Had I been shot the other night, I’d have died mostly poor in the things that matter. Yes, colleagues and associates from across the state would have attended my funeral, and in that I’d have been rich. And grateful… But I’d have been so horribly poor in family and friends. Were deeply intimate personal relationships the measure of my wealth, I’d be buried in a pauper’s grave.

I no longer want to live life this way. Family and moral principles are more important than career. When I do die, of course I want people to praise my work. But if I’m confident that I’ve been true to my moral principles on my death bed, and I have even one person near me who I love and who loves me intensely, that’s my measure of a life lived well.