A tall man, blurry eyed, walks into a bar, reaches into his pocket, pulls out a wad of cash and slaps it on the counter as he sits at a barstool. Two shots! He shouts at the bartender that hadn’t noticed him come in. The man looks left. He looks right. Eyes up the women on either side as he adjusts his wedding ring. He catches the eye of a woman and winks before she has the chance to look away. He sneers and chuckles a bit under his breath. The hum of the lotto machine buzzes nearby. The unintelligible sports program plays underneath the bar’s holiday playlist, only to be interrupted by the day’s breaking news periodically. Hours pass. The shot glasses pile up. The man is slumped in his seat, elbows on the table, head in hands. Unsure of how much time has passed, unsure how much money has been spent, unsure of how to gain his footing, he sits for a moment longer. Then an hour. Maybe two. He sobers up, or nearly does, as he heads home. He is now short on money and short on time, short on patience, short on love.

The short <not-so-tall> man walks into his house. His wife is asleep. The kids, asleep. His soul, asleep. The next thing the man knows, his alarm is going off. He rises before the wife and children wake. He stumbles into his work boots, grabs cash out of his wife’s purse as he heads out the door. The man shuffles his feet across the gravel road to his truck up the driveway. The tall man drives, blurry eyed, to a parking lot where he gets out and walks into a bar. “Two Shots!”

No unexamined life is better than another. This one is just more obvious. The story is truly about one’s relationship with God. Those with ears, let them hear.