The Parade Part 5
March 19, 2026
The Parade Part 5
An old American saying about people who save money only to lose far more in the process: “They would stop a parade to pick up a penny.”
The image is vivid; an entire parade halted for something trivial. The saying echoes older adages such as “penny wise and pound foolish” and “buying cheap costs dear.” While these phrases arose from economic wisdom, their more profound truth extends well beyond money. They speak powerfully to the spiritual life.
Spiritually, we too can stop the parade.
I am speaking of the tendency to emphasize more minor spiritual matters while neglecting the greater ones. For example, the habit of clutching spiritual pennies like saying a prayer before a meal while forgetting the human need right in front of us.
What are some of these spiritual pennies? There are many.
One is an excessive focus on rules—on doing the “right” thing, while losing sight of our higher spiritual aims: love, freedom, and communion with the Divine. Another is devoting one’s life to compulsively helping others to feel better about us while forgetting that Divine benevolence flows through our hearts to genuinely help others. There is also the careful checking of every box required to appear spiritually mature, while losing the direct experience of becoming more spiritually mature.
Sometimes a seemingly noble pursuit becomes a substitute for deeper inquiry. The all-consuming search for one’s “authentic self” can eclipse the more essential relationship with God. Likewise, we may accumulate vast amounts of spiritual knowledge while neglecting the formation of spiritual wisdom and its application.
There are other ways the parade gets interrupted. Loyalty to a spiritual group or an authority figure can take precedence over one’s own inner confidence, born of groundedness in the Divine. A hunger for extraordinary spiritual experiences can replace the cultivation of inner stillness, the very space needed to integrate and embody them. Some of us come to believe we have grown beyond vulnerability, imagining ourselves exempt from the dark night of the soul. Others prize harmony at all costs, missing the more profound love that can emerge only through honest conflict and transformation.
Each of these is a penny. None is evil in itself. Yet any one of them can halt something far greater. I am reminded of Luke 10:38-42, which teaches us the essential nature of spiritual economics. Martha was counting pennies by serving, while Mary chose the good portion by sitting at Jesus' feet and listening to Him. Jesus’s response to Martha's complaint about Mary was, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and worried about many things. There is only one need. Mary has chosen the better part, and it will not be taken from her.”
The parade we stop may be the most crucial procession of our lives: the slow, sacred movement of the soul’s progression toward God. To halt it is to lose far more than we ever gained.
Spiritual practice: Give yourself some space to meditate on your spiritual priorities and the cost of them.
Self-inquiry: What spiritual “parade” may you have stopped and why?
Prayer:
Dear God, create in me the aim to know my spiritual path and, with your help, to stay on it. Amen
