Remember this, thieves: the good Quaker is an ideal target for violent crime.

It is my vow not to practice violence against another human being, and that means no fighting back. Although once someone tried to rob me and I kicked him in the balls and popped him one. It wasn't an act of bravery. After those guys threw me up against a truck that time and tried to rob me, I had decided whoever did that to me again was going to get his. I wore my bigass hiking boots whenever I went to the city and just waited. The guy who finally did it was small and unarmed and I knew the moment he went after me that he was mine. He was really just an inexpert pickpocket, but boom, the die was cast. A whole storefront full of guys saw him go down and just laughed at the whole scene, not making a move to help either of us. I felt a wonderful sensation bloom just behind my sternum, and considered just kicking his ass wholesale, letting loose on him with the clunky boots and all my leftover anger. It wasn't exactly the high water mark of my Quaker sensibilities.

So now I'm walking around the city and I'm committed to the practice of non-violence, the perfect subject for a whupping. When I drive, I should be the guy you jack your car in ahead of in heavy traffic because I'll never follow you home and beat your nose bloody in your own driveway while your kids scream tearfully at the windows. But the city has nurtured me like its own son. I am an aggressively defensive driver, assuming the worst about my fellow motorists and acting on my assumptions. When the snotty suburban SUV gas-sucking prima-drivers try to elbow in on me, I hit the gas and we just see who's chicken. When I merge, I look for the high-strung owners of expensive undented cars, or the lane-wandering rentals of confused tourists, and I abuse them something awful. So as an urban driver, my commitment to the principle of treating other humans with dignity and respect is still largely questionable.

We Quakers are taught that within every life there is a light inside -- the animating presence of God. We're not just moons reflecting the illumination of the divine, we (and all life) contain the warm source of a loving creator, the very substance of its earthly presence. To accept this confers the awesome responsibility of cherishing and protecting all life as one would one's own. To abuse, destroy, or damage another life is to practice in the destruction of one's own being. It is the ultimate act of self-hatred and the willing ignorance of one's own nature.

Despite my shortcomings, evidence suggests that my commitment to these priciples is not a complete shambles. For example, I do not consume animal flesh. The only time I've eaten meat since age 15 was while I lived in Senegal, when the limited availability of food left me emaciated and skeletal. I also do not slay insects as a matter of domestic policy. Invertebrate intruders to the house are shown the door, but they are not annihilated. Finally, I devote a chunk of my week to the amelioration of suffering and the occasional saving of life as an Emergency Medical Technician. I desperately want to learn how to pull people out of fires.

The question became: is the relative good I do in one area of my life transferable to the places in which I continue to demonstrate sad deficiencies?

So I considered building a karmometer. Several ancient texts, recently translated from Greek by a friend as part of her PhD in religious history, provided some limited instructions on the assembly of this device. Of course, it is not called a "karmometer" in ancient Greek, but given the sophistication and usage of the product, I thought it an appropriate appellation.

But then I decided no to, for to engage in this endeavor would verge on self parody the end.