Counting the Cost

Watching what I do, to see what I believe

Hello friends! It’s been several weeks since I’ve posted. 40 years ago, I wrote a song titled “Counting the Cost.”¹ Today, an acoustic version created with my son Sam was released. We used my vocal from the original 1986 recording,² with Sam adding acoustic guitar and harmony vocals and me on piano—there’s a little of Brent Bourgeois’ original backing vocal in the mix too. Old and new, tried and true. Enjoy.

Note: News & Updates follow my thoughts on “Counting the Cost.” There are a few items you won’t want to miss.

There is a boxer, a young boxer living across the street from me

There is a woman living in my house

There's a light in the kitchen that needs my attention

Over in the corner, there's a magazine rack

There's a garden growing in the back

Now, what's a poor soul to do?

Keeping track of all of this and all of that

Counting the Cost of What?

What I make up about the motivation of the 29-year-old artist who wrote this song is this: I was overwhelmed with little to no helpful understanding of the hypervigilance that shaped my life. Yet, I was likely (and perhaps pridefully) hoping to suggest to others that seeing much was a value they might want to embrace.

That is, seeing detail so as not to miss life—the interdependence of it all, relationships, the countless opportunities for empathy, justice, reconciliation, and stewardship. I imagine there is a bit of a 12-step “fearless moral inventory” here and there (particularly toward the end).

For every unkind word I've spoke—counting the cost of keeping track

For all the money I've kept for myself—counting the cost of keeping track

For every unreturned phone call—counting the cost of keeping track

For every prayer, I've locked up tight—counting the cost of keeping track

And, finally, I had the wisdom of Jesus in my ear.

"Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Won't you first sit down and estimate the cost to see if you have enough money to complete it? For if you lay the foundation and are not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule you . . . (Luke 14:28-29).”

The context of these verses is Jesus waxing parabolic about the cost of following him as a student/disciple—even unto carrying one’s own cross—the source of the idiom: cross to bear. What Webster defines as “a problem that causes trouble or worry for someone over a long period of time.”

The function of Jesus’ huddle with his 1^st Gen cohort of students was to remind them that proximity to him and his redemption project would be costly. And it was. They paid with their lives.

Today’s Cost

For the global cohort in 2025, it’s not necessarily perpetual trouble and worry, but a cost remains. Saying yes to Jesus as Creator With Us³ is not to be taken lightly. It is an affirmation of cosmic consequence. It is a commitment to “keeping track of all of this and all of that” as an act of love—which is often a sharing in the sufferings of Jesus, your neighbors—all the while living your own.

The weight of caring about the deluge of suffering can be exhausting, particularly in our time when every form of media reminds us 24/7 of all that needs repair and reconciliation.

There’s a time to be angry and a time to be sweet

Maybe I should telephone grandmother

Tell her how much I’ve been missing her

Some on the planet worry about dramatic losses to their retirement accounts; others wonder which fast-food family pack will feed the most children. We're keeping track of everything, including wars, whether AI will take our jobs, the status of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, inflation, school shootings, astronomical healthcare costs, broken hearts, minds, and bodies, and the destiny of our grandchildren (only the beginning of a very long list).

This is why, on another occasion, Jesus invites a crowd: "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light (Matthew 11:28-30).”

I’m Confused, Is It Easy Or Hard? Heavy or Light?

Reconciling the challenge of Luke 14:28-29 with the comforting invitation of Matthew 11:28-30 might seem perplexing. Yet when understood through Jesus' cosmic-size mission (the restoration of true human flourishing in relationship with Creator With Us), these teachings coexist and co-illuminate.

Taking Jesus seriously is not a casual endeavor; it’s not a half-hearted or impulsive decision. It’s also not a performance-based transaction of religious legalism or a path to empire. It is a long-haul relationship. Love is never cheap.

Who Do You Say I Am?

If Jesus is the singular first-cause Creator With Us deeply interested in all cosmic Creativity, then taking the Jesus story seriously is to me, wisdom. If the story isn’t trustworthy, then it’s foolish to treat it as such. Each person is free to answer or ignore Jesus’ question: “Who do you say I am? (Mark 8:27-29).”

Entering the Creator With Us story as a student taught me an essential lesson about counting the cost of everything. As a result, I’m incrementally learning to let go of a burden of self-sufficiency and hypervigilance I was never intended to bear. I’m still grateful to be in the cosmic betterment business of caring about all of this and all of that, though.

Today's difference is how much I have Let Go and Let God (as the recovery folks say). I am taking Jesus at his word. I am resting in the trustworthy assurance that the ultimate burdens of all our lives—our anxieties, struggles, failures, tragedies, massive injustices and disparities, and even death, are lighter in load because Creator With Us shoulders them with us.

Direction to navigate, light to see, and courage to take first steps are a prayer away (which is always nothing more or less than an honest conversation about matters of mutual concern).

More Wisdom Messengers

“People say, what is the sense of our small effort? They cannot see that we must lay one brick at a time, take one step at a time.” — Dorothy Day

Day’s life was a long, quiet tower-building of solidarity with the poor. Her faith compelled her to radical hospitality and resistance. She counted the cost not in theory but in proximity to the suffering (this has the ring of familiarity to it, doesn't it, Jesus?).

“It’s the little things citizens do. That’s what will make the difference. My little thing is planting trees.” — Wangari Maathai

In choosing to care for the land and its people in Kenya, Maathai faced arrest, beatings, and political opposition. Her discipleship, so to speak, was rooted in regenerative care. She counted the cost—and did it anyway. Her “little thing”—the Green Belt Movement has planted over 50 million trees.

“I watch what I do to see what I actually believe.” — Sister Helen Prejean

Sister Prejean chose to walk with men on death row because she believes in mercy. Her life is an ongoing calculation of cost—what it means to extend dignity to the least, the forgotten, the condemned.

“All flourishing is mutual.”— Robin Wall Kimmerer

Kimmerer writes of plant life with reverence and teaches that gratitude and reciprocity are ethical imperatives. Choosing to live this way means resisting extractive culture—an approach to living characterized by taking or removing resources, value, labor, or ideas without adequate or equitable compensation, replenishment, or regard for sustainability.

A Word To Fellow Hypervigilants

In closing, I want to speak directly to those like me who believed for so long that your hypervigilance was keeping you alive and safe. Because there’s another kind of cost: the toll taken on those who’ve always been counting since we were children. Always needing to know, eyes scanning the room, the planet. Scanning for exits before we learned how to spell "escape."

For us, cost-counting isn't an exercise in wisdom—it’s reflex. It’s a tumor on our nervous system. Sometimes it’s ancestral, epigenetic.

We were never naïve. We became fluent in microexpressions, threat assessment, and coded silence. For some of the healthier, counting the cost is spiritual maturity. For us, it’s muscle memory—fight, flight, or freeze—drunk on adrenaline, norepinephrine, and cortisol. Sick and tired of being sick and tired.

Creator With Us, the Jesus of our journey, the God of all comfort, has got our back too. As do the poets and prophets. Listen.

Poets + Prophets

“Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror. Just keep going. No feeling is final.”—Rainer Maria Rilke

Rilke does not deny the terror. He doesn’t offer toxic positivity. He simply reminds us that we are not meant to become our hypervigilance.

“You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.”—Mary Oliver

She knew that the hypervigilant soul needs permission to stop scanning, to let go of notions of penance, being good enough to feel safe enough to love, to be loved, to rest, and to let someone share your burden or take it altogether.

"Don't ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive."—Howard Thurman

The vigilant ones often forget what makes them come alive, or they’ve been too busy watching for the sabertooth tiger to find out. But Thurman dares to say: Your joy is what the world actually needs. Not your hyper-functioning. Not your constant protection of others.

I get it. You’re not imagining things. Trouble is real and the cost of chronic vigilance is stored in the body. Hard to stop the starting. Ugh. Sigh.

Rachel Yehuda’s research shows that trauma can be inherited, too. If you've always been on, it may be that your ancestors had to be. I know mine were (read Chapter Two of Roots & Rhythm). Our bodies carry that chronic alertness and scorecard. But Yehuda also believes healing can be inherited. I know it can. On earth as it is in heaven.

Inheritance of Healing

“The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory (Romans 8:16-17).”

I'm not running out of things to say

I'm running out of time to say them in

Counting the cost of keeping track

Of all of this and all of that

News and Updates

1. I’m very honored to announce that I recorded an interview this week for Nashville Public Radio’s This Is Nashville with gifted host Khalil Ekulona. It will air on WPLN and be avail online as a podcast. I’ll let you know the air date as soon as I get it. It was a joy to hang with Khalil and the production team at WPLN.

2. Nashvillians, here’s an item for your calendars. Join me Saturday mid-morning on June 14th at the Tennessee State Museum as part of their TN Writers/Stories Series. I’ll be in conversation with the fabulous Jason Wilkins, a longtime writer/manager fixture on the Nashville music scene. Sponsored by Humanities Tennessee and Vanderbilt University Press.

   

3. If you don’t know songwriter Joe Pug, you must! Not only for his own artistry but for his popular and erudite Spotify podcast, The Working Songwriter. I was pleased to sit down with Joe awhile back for an interview surrounding the release of Roots & Rhythm. He is a fantastic interviewer and someone I’m now glad to call a friend. Enjoy at Apple Podcasts with a click on the graphic.

   

4. I can’t think of a better companion song to “Counting the Cost” than “Holding On and Letting Go.” Sung by Sarah Masen Dark, written and produced by me five years back. Enjoy.

1. “Counting the Cost”—Music + Lyrics by Charlie Peacock ©1986, lyric reprinted courtesy of EMI Blackwood Music Inc. (BMI), administrated by Sony/ATV Music Publishing

2. The eponymous album Charlie Peacock (Island Records 90541) was released 9/26/86 and distributed by Atlantic. Available at all streaming sites.

3. The proper name, Creator With Us, is inspired by reading The New Testament in Color: A Multiethnic Bible Commentary. It combines the concept of Jesus as the agency of Creation (Creator) with the incarnate Jesus as Emmanuel (God With Us).