{"id":2523,"date":"2023-04-11T09:02:41","date_gmt":"2023-04-11T13:02:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/js1cd06kre.onrocket.site\/?p=2523"},"modified":"2023-04-11T09:03:21","modified_gmt":"2023-04-11T13:03:21","slug":"a-small-price-to-pay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2023\/04\/11\/a-small-price-to-pay\/","title":{"rendered":"A Small Price to Pay"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

To listen to this reflection as a podcast, <\/em>click here<\/a>.
 
More than 200 years ago, during the presidency of James Madison, the U.S. Treasury received an unusual gift.
 
It was an anonymous donation of $5 from someone who admitted he had defrauded the government.
 
Thus was born the Conscience Fund, the official financial depository for those who wish to contribute guilt money.  Since that original gift of $5 in 1811, the Conscience Fund has received almost $10 million. 
 
Some of the gifts seem absurdly small.  \u201cPlease accept this money for a postage stamp I re-used,\u201d said a donor from Massachusetts, who admitted to peeling off and resending a three-cent stamp that hadn\u2019t been canceled the first time.  Nine cents were enclosed.
 
Other gifts have been substantial.  The Fund received a check in 1990 for $155,502 \u2013 an oddly specific number \u2013 without any clue as to what it represented.
 
A donor wrote: \u201cAbout eight years ago I took from a railroad station an item worth about $25, and this has been on my conscience since.  So I\u2019m enclosing $50 to clear my conscience.\u201d  Another person sent the government a dime.  \u201cThis afternoon I found the enclosed coin on the pavement.\u201d
 
Some of the notes are head-scratchers: \u201cEnclosed is $210 for some letters I read many years ago, and some food I didn\u2019t pay for.\u201d  One particular donor sent some handmade quilts in the hope this might settle her tax bill. 
 
A 1966 contribution arrived with this note: \u2033My conscience hurts because I stole government property: two metal panel office dividers with plastic upper portion. I ask your forgiveness and say I am extremely sorry for this rotten act.  Enclosed $50 bill to cover cost\u2026 May God and you forgive me.\u2033
 
Almost all of the notes that accompany financial donations are anonymous.  Some of the gifts are forwarded by clergy who have received deathbed confessions.
 
Interestingly, donations have declined in recent years.  While the Fund received $1.1 million in 2014, only $23,000 was added to the coffers in 2016.  Since all contributions are transferred to the general fund of the U.S. Treasury, some speculate that the decline might be correlated with historically low levels of trust in the government.  No one knows for sure.
 
Perhaps the most famous letter is this one: \u201cDear Internal Revenue Service, I have not been able to sleep at night because I cheated on last year\u2019s income tax.  Enclosed find a cashier\u2019s check for $1,000.  If I still can\u2019t sleep, I\u2019ll send you the balance.\u201d  The note was unsigned.  Hopefully you\u2019re sleeping well as the deadline for submitting your 2022 taxes approaches. 
 
Human beings are wired in such a way that if we break the law \u2013 God\u2019s laws or civic laws \u2013 we will be driven, inexorably, to one of three strategies:
 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

  1. Denial<\/li>
  2. Evasion<\/li>
  3. Confession and restitution<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    All three strategies cost something.

    Denial<\/em> costs us our mental health.  \u201cI\u2019m a good person, I haven\u2019t done anything wrong.\u201d  But a violated conscience has a way of subverting our inner happiness, no matter how many years have gone by and how many rationalizations we have believed.

    Evasion<\/em> costs us our integrity.  \u201cNo one knows what I\u2019ve done.\u201d  Even if you don\u2019t believe in a God who is halfway paying attention to the world, you in fact know that you <\/em>know, and compromised character is always predisposed toward the next compromise.

    Confession and restitution<\/em> cost us our pride.  \u201cI\u2019ve done wrong.  No excuses.  I will do whatever it takes to make things right.\u201d  The wonderful thing about the third option is that it resets both our inner and outer worlds \u2013 restoring our peace and reconnecting us with God and others.

    The Bible adds an interesting twist. 

    As Jesus intimates in his Parable of the Unmerciful Servant (Matthew 18:21-35), we\u2019re all in debt to God: serious, jaw-dropping, not-a-chance-in-a-million-lifetimes-to-pay-it-all-off<\/em> debt.   

    But there\u2019s good news:  God is the ultimate debt eraser.  On the cross God offered a Gift that more than outweighs the world\u2019s cumulative sin deficit. 

    There is, of course, a cost that we have to bear.

    We have to give up the hope of ever buying our own way to heaven.

    Which, when you think about it, is a small price to pay for a clear conscience.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    To listen to this reflection as a podcast, click here. More than 200 years ago, during the presidency of James Madison, the U.S. Treasury received an unusual gift. It was an anonymous donation of $5 from someone who admitted he had defrauded the government. Thus was born the Conscience Fund, the official financial depository for those who wish to contribute guilt money.  Since that… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2524,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[584,554],"class_list":["post-2523","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-conscience","tag-guilt"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2523","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2523"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2523\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2526,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2523\/revisions\/2526"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2524"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2523"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2523"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2523"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}