Predators And Everyday Saints

I’ve met some remarkable people the last month traveling for Maine to Seattle and everywhere in between. They are people that will probably never make the news, but they are truly the best of us.

- His childhood one of abandonment, his mother an addict, he is a survivor and responder.

- Given away from his mother in the 8^th grade, he was on his own at 16 and is now a Fire Chief with a family rich in love and achievement.

- In spite of incredible physical and mental hardships to overcome by him and his wife, they adopted 3 children needing a home and built a family of love and service.

Then today, I read an article about Peter Thiel, the founder of Paypal and a billionaire. The type of businessman both revered and reviled for many for his often contrarian conservative ways. At the end of the article it describes him in the following way:

Today, he lives in Vienna, Austria, with his long-time partner, Matt Danzeisen, whom he married in 2017, and now co-parents a baby daughter. Though he’s avoided the limelight in recent years, he is still feared by many. As anti-monopoly activist Matt Stoller told Chafkin: He’s “a nihilist, a really smart nihilist. He’s entirely about power — it’s the law of the jungle: ‘I’m a predator and the predators win.’ ”

Pondering this all, I was brought back to the basics by The Ancient Faith Bible. It is an edition of the CSB filled with narrative from Church fathers of the 1^st to 4^th centuries. A sucker for new bibles, I stumbled upon it in a bookstore on a break and couldn’t put it down. A volume of insightful commentary from long dead Bishops and monks commenting on the word of God.

And that brought me back to the place I always end up. It is all vanity, save Family, Faith, and Community.