48K a year. 

That was my starting salary as a DA.  With loans and tithing to church.  Although many of my colleagues were good people and I’m friends with till this day, there were a few I could have lived without.  The worst there happened to sit in a row on our floor.  I used to daydream that in a fire, I would jam something in their door locks and enjoy the ensuing consequences.  I’m a Christian, not a saint and always a work in progress.  I don’t feel that way now – maybe let them toast a bit.  Still, it was said that it would be the best job I’d ever have.  I think that was correct.

This one is about what matters.

I once told a pastor friend in Boston that a biblical verse that spoke to me was from the 10th Psalm where there is an imploring to God to break the arm of the wicked and evildoer.  Like on other occasions, this was met with an uncomfortable response.  We can discuss and theorize all we want about the nature of good and evil, its origins, and what not but don’t ever fool yourself, there are wicked people out there – and not necessarily in places where you think you’d find them.  They must be stopped – often at great cost.  

But this is about so much more than justice.  This is about purpose and living for something bigger than oneself.  I realized the people I count most trusted and valued to me have generally lived for others.  That was also attractive to me in women.  I didn’t necessarily want Wonder Woman or Mother Teresa – those types are actually problematic – but it was about something else, maybe soul and spirit.  I told a church leader recently that I had no desire to be a martyr, I wasn’t that noble or sacrificial but I needed to know my life mattered.  How that all turned out, it is still being written.  

What we do in life echoes in eternity.  My cop friend told me about how he took down a pedophile.  I told my friend that while he couldn’t prevent past actions of this monster, he prevented more harm from occurring.  I also told my DA Chief it is difficult to impossible to quantify or measure the impact of our work.  Maybe we only find out at the end of it all – maybe never.  This also requires faith.  It applies to anything we set out to do – get a degree, pursue a calling, have a kid, whatever.  Just got to make sure it counts and what results is worth it.

David, on his deathbed, writes one more prayer of thanksgiving to God for his life.  It was a thing for sure – he experienced everything a human could possibly experience, to the nth degree.  He lived.  He made it through life without just surviving.  He made it count.

And I think that what matters.