God’s economy: subtract or multiply?

I would never make it as an accountant. I tend to lose focus on details, and I’ve never been too motivated about dollars and cents. Plus I can get philosophical on something as simple as mathematical functions like subtract or multiply.

What to some might look like subtraction, a reduction in the bottom line, in God’s economy can be multiplication, compounding and expanding in every direction. It doesn’t make sense mathematically, but there’s a spiritual reality that sets our zero-sum economy on end.

I’ve been watching this happen in my garden, my backyard workshop for theological reflection. Exhibit one: Dicentra cucullaria, Dutchman’s Breeches, a native woodland plant in the bleeding-heart family, with white spring blooms shaped like tiny upside-down pantaloons.