I’m pretty annoyed right now. While I was in church this evening, someone stole my radio. Out of my car. They messed up my dash some too. My CAR! The one that I work on making better and fixing up—it’s messed up! Part of me wants to find them and throttle them. Part of me wants to go buy the nicest radio, a grenade, and a little string. Or made a device that calls fire down from heaven whenever anyone touches my car. Then there’s the response that says, “Just make sure you never have anything that anyone would want, and they won’t take it.” I’m pretty close—I’d need to get rid of my…I don’t know, maybe my bread maker, my linksys router, or the butter in my fridge. People hate me when I have more stuff than them. If I didn’t have more stuff, they wouldn’t want to hurt me, and we could all be friends. By having a nice radio with an MP3 player, I deserve to get my radio stolen—it was just a kindly Robin Hood helping out the poor that I am oppressing by having nice stuff.
But it’s just annoying. Stealing radios is not a profession. It’s something bad. It’s not just “Well, he can’t make money any other way, so who can blame him?” No, he is a person who does bad things. Am I allowed to say he’s a bad person? It make me mad at the type of people who would do this sort of thing, the people who don’t have jobs, the people who can’t seem to “make it”. I kinda don’t want to help people who can’t make it because they do things like this.
Maybe I’ll get another radio. Maybe I’ll pull one with a tape deck out of my closet and install it. Maybe I’ll stick a little amp in there and just buy an MP3 player. Maybe I’ll just cover it up, and install switches and dials for my diesel/vegetable oil system. Maybe I’ll fix up the dash best I can, buy another radio, and behind the face, tape a $50 bill and a note asking the thief to please just take the money, and leave the radio…because it is wired to a grenade!
I’m sure there is a Christ-like response that I’m missing. Something about praying for the bad person who did this, and not storing up treasure on earth. Is there a fundamental difference between turning the other cheek and rolling over and playing dead?
Tenor:
Treasure in heaven
Treasures in he-ea-ven!
Lay up for yourselves,
Treasures in heaven.
Soprano:
Ask and you shall receive
Seek and you shall find
Knock and it shall be opened,
Be opened unto you
Be opened unto you.
