The Power of Half

Have you heard of the family who gave away half? Kevin Salwen, a writer and entrepreneur in Atlanta, was driving with his 14 year old daughter. They pulled up between a Mercedes and a person begging for food, and she commented to her father that if the person who owned the car would have settled with a little less car, the homeless person might have a meal.....

Back home, her mother charged her with the ridiculous question, 'what do you want to do, sell our home?' And they did. And they gave away half the money, downsizing to a perfectly fine house with the other half. And now they do weird things like play board games and talk and eat dinner together because they're in that smaller house 'stuck together'. They said they traded 'stuff' for togetherness and connectedness. Mr. Salwen said, 'I can't figure out why everybody wouldn't want that deal.'

The first time I read about this, a week or so ago, it didn't go anywhere beyond that. Then I saw it again, in this morning's paper. When God puts something in front of my face over and over, so that I can't ignore it, our pastor calls it 'God's echos'. He said we tend to make figuring out 'God's will' for our lives complicated; sometimes all we need to do is listen for repeats or echos.

This newspaper article not only shared the story of the house that was sold, it went on to say that the family who bought the larger house pledged $100,000 to charity. Which charity isn't the point; there are plenty of good ones if you look with an eye even half open. This second article challenged US, ME, whoever was reading, by saying this:

'Everyone has too much of something, whether it's time or talent or treasure. Everyone does have their own half, you just have to find it.' So that put me to thinking, what do I have too much of?

After telling Don the story of the Salwens, he agreed and we're going to give away half of our grocery money for the month of February. We need to eat from what's in the freezer and on the shelves because we're moving 1200 miles south soon, and like many Americans we have plenty in the pantry if we're just a little bit creative. Our 'half' will be the grocery money we won't be using; it'll be given to our local food pantry, and I'd probably be ashamed to know how many people it will feed, rather than just the two of us.


1 in 50 children in America are homeless. Read this article if your heart needs a little more nudging to do something. I could be wrong but I'm betting homeless means often going to bed hungry. I can't imagine any of my grandkids going to bed hungry. Giving away half our grocery money won't affect our grandkids, they'll all go to bed full anyway (unless they act up at the dinner table) but it could send someone else's grandchild to bed with a full tummy, rather than an empty one.

Thinking about this 'half' stuff, I could give away half my pajama pants, or sweaters, or shoes. Or half my time for even one day a week volunteering somewhere. I could give away half my money spent on drive through coffee for a month, or movie rental money, or half of my bathroom towels. The list really is endless. If I got really radical, maybe I could give up half my complaining for a day - even that would make our world a better place.

What's your 'half'?