how much is it worth to you?

"This very personal relationship, 'value,' has two factors for a human being: first, what he can do with a thing, its use to him...and second, what he must do to get it, its cost to him. There is an old song which asserts 'the best things in life are free.' Not true! Utterly false! This was the tragic fallacy which brought on the decadence and collapse of the democracies of the twentieth century; those noble experiments failed because the people had been led to believe that they could simply vote for whatever they wanted...and get it, without toil, without sweat, without tears.

"Nothing of value is free. Even the breath of life is purchased at birth only through gasping effort and pain. ...If you boys and girls had to sweat for your toys the way a newly born baby has to struggle to live you would be happier...and much richer. As it is, with some of you, I pity the poverty of your wealth.

"...I fancy that the poet who wrote that song meant to imply the the best things in life must be purchased other than with money--which is true--just as the literal meaning of his words is false. The best things in life are beyond money; their price is agony and sweat and devotion...and the price demanded for the most precious of all things in life is life itself--ultimate cost for perfect value."

--Robert A. Heinlein
"Starship Troopers"

Many thoughts come to mind as I read this quote. The first, most obvious one is that the novel "Starship Troopers" is infinitely more intelligent than the movie. The movie was, to put it bluntly, a cheap imitation of something the imitators obviously didn't understand. Or just didn't care about. They pared the story down to a showcase of its action, eviscerating it of the meaty philosophy that is so much more interesting than the lasers and scary aliens and futuristic-looking technology. I'm convinced the film would have been more successful had the producers left the real story in the story.

My second thought is that Heinlein is absolutely right in what he wrote about the 20th century's democracies. Oh, certainly, they haven't collapsed yet...but I won't be surprised if I still live to see their collapse in the future. They certainly are a grand and noble experiment...but they are, as Heinlein described them, decadent. For those of us who live in democracies--mostly in the Western world--what is there that we can't truly just reach out and take, compared with the rest of the world's societies? We might whine and complain about missing a few amenities here and there, but in truth we are decadent, morally lounging around with the bowl of ripe fruit no further than our fingertips. Sure, we work hard at our jobs...but even those are practically given to us. (Check and compare with history before you condemn me for that statement. Jobs have never been so secure and easily attainable as they have been in the Western world for the past 200 years.) As a whole, our societies are morally and ethically bankrupt. We get our lifestyles handed to us on a silver platter, and we react with righteous indignation if someone dares suggest we don't deserve them. We no longer remember how to value what we've got.

And if we don't remember soon, our precious democracies are going to collapse. No society, no government, can stand up under the weight of self-righteous immorality--Heinlein's decadence--for long. The people who agonized and sweated and devoted themselves to the creation of our democracies...those people are long gone, and we have no speakers for the dead (to borrow an Orson Scott Card phrase) to remind us of the true significance of their sacrifices.

The final thought I want to share relates to the final statement in the Heinlein quote: the price demanded for the most precious of all things in life is life itself--ultimate cost for perfect value. From what I've read of his writings and his biography, Heinlein wasn't a believer in the Biblical sense of the word...but I think he hits the nail of Christianity right on the head. I view the above quote from two perspectives:

First, Jesus paid the ultimate cost: his life for us. In order to give us eternal life, which is the perfect value, he chose to submit to the demand for his life in return for ours. Jesus set the perfect example of how we humans should place value: the value is directly related to and dependent on the cost. In the Lord's eyes, our eternal life with him--our chance at eternal life, should we choose to accept it--has perfect value. So he accepted the ultimate cost, giving us his agony and bloodsweat and devotion.

Second, in order for us to accept his gift, we must give the ultimate cost as well: our lives for him. Not necessarily in a physical sense, though some have given that, too. But in a spiritual sense: our agony, sweat, and devotion--the essence of our lives--for the perfect value: a relationship with him, starting in this life and carrying on eternally into the next. The most precious of all things.

In this life, this most precious of all things could cost us everything.

I feel like I'm not getting to the heart of the matter, that I'm not expressing the thoughts that are circling around inside my head. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I think sacrificing my life--paying the ultimate cost--for Jesus is worth everything I've got. He's worth everything I am.

Those inadequate words will just have to do for now.

(Kudos to you if you read this whole post.)