What We Learn to Value

There are some lessons life insists on teaching. It teaches them slowly. Often quietly. Sometimes painfully.

We rarely recognize those lessons while they are unfolding. A conversation with a parent. An afternoon spent with a child. A meal around the family table. At the time they seem like one more moment among many. Only years later do we realize they were among the richest moments of our lives.

The moments did not become more valuable. We finally learned to value them. Some lessons are too expensive to learn only from experience.

In today’s Gospel lesson, Jesus tells two of the shortest parables in all of Scripture. “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field,” He says, “which someone found and hid; then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.” A few verses later, Jesus tells of a merchant who discovers “one pearl of great value” and gladly sells everything he owns to buy it.