Distinctly Montana Magazine

81 w w w . d i s t i n c t l y m o n t a n a . c o m beautiful, striped eyes, well adapted for seeing on land and in water, on the approaching oddity, than it is too late. Too late to philosophize as to the nature of the thing. Too late to try to adjust course. Too late. II. In ancient Roman times, in occupied Judaea, a sparrow was a light snack and could be purchased cheap. Workers of the em- pire stood to make about one Denarius a day, which could be broken down into 64 farthings. Sparrows were about a penny each, or two for a farthing. The average working class Roman, therefore, made about 128 sparrows a day. The median income in America is about $272 a day. This means that, in today's money, a sparrow purchased from a stall in Ro- man-occupied Jerusalem would be worth about $2.13. "Are not two sparrows sold for the smallest pittance?" Christ asked his disciples as he prepared them to go forth as sheep among wolves, to spread the good news. He told them to proclaim in the light what he has told them in the dark. He warned them that the message they are to spread is so radical that they will be hated in His name. They will need to flee from city to city. They may even die. But they should fear not, He told them (in David Bent- ley Hart's translation of the Gospel of Matthew) "…do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul… Are not two sparrows sold for the smallest pit- tance? And not one of them will fall to earth abandoned by your Father." Western Painted Turtle, on the open market, goes from between $30 and $120 depending on whatever makes a tur- tle more or less expensive. Granted, these are not destined to be eaten, as were the ancient sparrows, but sold for pets. But it makes them considerably more valuable than the sparrow dis- cussed by Christ and the apostles, who goes on to tell them "… even the hairs of your head are numbered. So do not be afraid; you are of greater worth than a great many sparrows." How many is a great many sparrows? Assuming that 100 of any- thing is usually a great many of that thing, that makes an apostle worth about $213, or a turtle and some change. Or is His comment telling us that the sparrow, and by logical extension the turtle, has value beyond the monetary? A website that sells mice lists them from $1.50 for a tiny pink mouse to a fancy hairless mouse for $20. In 1780s Scotland, when the poet Robert Burns was plowing the fields at Mossgiel Farm, had they been selling mice, that would have made them worth a few farthings—well within view of the value of a sparrow. One day his plow upturned a little mouse's nest, and as he stood and stared at the poor displaced mouse, he considered its value in relation to him, and which had suffered more in the incident. The resulting poem, one of his most famous, was, according to his brother, composed even as Burns's hand was still on the plow. In the poem, he apologizes to the small "beastie," for destroying the nest she had labored so long over. He also considers, briefly, an issue of value and exchange when he realizes that the bit of

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