On Spiritual Algebra

This morning, not 30 minutes ago, I helped a nun up a flight of stairs.

The facilities people who clear the snow-n-ice didn’t clear the steps to their edges, meaning that she couldn’t reach a handrail. Poor thing didn’t want to risk going up unsupported, which is entirely understandable as she is just this side of 90. I happened to walk out when she needed a hand coming in, so there you go. I also confided to her that I almost took a digger this morning on my very own steps, so as not to let her feel any more frail than she already might.

So here’s my question: which specific act of evil in my long career of prickiness might now be negated? It seems that in life’s equation, I just got a +1 that ought to cancel a -1 somewhere else.

Maybe I can be made right with Vishnu for all the ants I torched with a magnifying glass. Maybe I can even get off the hook with the little green plastic god that oversees little green plastic army men; lord knows he’d want a piece of me. Then again, what if G-d is a god of war and conflict, for which there is a fair amount of evidence. This act today, then, might actually bring me backwards.