{"id":66710,"date":"2026-05-25T09:02:58","date_gmt":"2026-05-25T15:02:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/publicsquaremag.org\/?p=66710"},"modified":"2026-05-25T09:02:58","modified_gmt":"2026-05-25T15:02:58","slug":"what-a-lost-five-dollar-bill-taught-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/publicsquaremag.org\/dialogue\/what-a-lost-five-dollar-bill-taught-me\/","title":{"rendered":"What a Lost Five-Dollar Bill Taught Me"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/publicsquaremag.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/How-Core-Values-Shape-Political-Conflict-Public-Square-Magazine.pdf\" download=\"\"><picture><source srcset=\"https:\/\/publicsquaremag.org\/wp-content\/webp-express\/webp-images\/uploads\/2025\/03\/pdf-download-1.png.webp\" type=\"image\/webp\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"margin-right: 2px; padding-right: 0; float: left;\" src=\"https:\/\/publicsquaremag.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/pdf-download-1.png\" class=\"webpexpress-processed\"><\/picture> Download Print-Friendly Version<\/a><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I never expected a five-dollar bill to prompt an existential crisis.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As I found Honest Abe half-buried among the fallen leaves, I wondered: do I leave it here to be raked up with the crunched leaves, turn it into a non-existent lost and found, or take it and pay it forward?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Grappling with this dilemma raised a larger question: How do we assign value?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Walking in the dark on a late autumn day, I left the heft of the fiver in my pocket. Its weight brought back a memory of teaching friends in inner-city America as a missionary.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">While I was visiting with a local church leader in his home, he taught the value of the Restored gospel with a dramatic flair. He pulled out a twenty-dollar bill, ripped it in half, and tossed it into the air, drifting in slow motion to the ground in two. The teenage children were stunned, their eyes bulging as they couldn\u2019t comprehend the sum of money being ripped like paper.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><div class=\"perfect-pullquote vcard pullquote-align-right pullquote-border-placement-left\"><blockquote><p>It taught me that values are subject to our experiences.<\/p><\/blockquote><\/div><br \/>\nThat moment stayed with me, not because of the theatrics, but because it taught me that values are subject to our experiences. To that leader, twenty dollars held symbolic value. To a family in humble circumstances, it was materially weighty. For me, its value was somewhere in between.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">How could we each interpret the same substance to have such different worth?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Every day, Americans clash over what must be valued, and how strongly we prioritize it: education, religious freedom, family roles, economic opportunity, national identity, public safety. Some issues demand our permanent attention; others are negotiable. Matters that are permanent to one person may be flexible for another.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The problem is not that we disagree on the relative value of issues. The danger is our assumption that our ranking of values is the only reasonable or just one, and those who rank them differently must be immoral, uninformed, or evil.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This assumption we all make is <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/publicsquaremag.org\/dialogue\/were-not-all-that-divided\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">tearing our country<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> apart.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I find it helpful to distinguish between two categories of values:<\/span><\/p>\n<ol>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Core values\u2014those central to who we are. Faith, family, and the freedom of conscience. Values that we cannot trade away or redefine. These embody eternal truths, and moral commitments.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Relative values\u2014those that necessitate <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/publicsquaremag.org\/politics-law\/america\/compromise-politics-us-canadian\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">balancing and compromise<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. Public policy, education curricula, economic tradeoffs, and development.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Reasonable people can, and do, evaluate both of these categories differently based on their unique culture, experience, and philosophy.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">When we are unwilling to compromise on our relative values, or when we insist that others compromise their core values, political conflict can become <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/publicsquaremag.org\/politics-law\/politics\/why-moderate-political-views-matter-for-latter-day-saints\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">unnecessarily divisive<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">When this occurs, compromise becomes impossible, and contempt is unavoidable. Healing is found as we \u201cdraw attention away from the biases of partisan politics,\u201d as the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dignity.us\/index\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Dignity Index<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> suggests.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><div class=\"perfect-pullquote vcard pullquote-align-right pullquote-border-placement-left\"><blockquote><p>Distinguishing between our core and relative values changes how we manage disagreement.<\/p><\/blockquote><\/div><br \/>\nIn my opinion, it\u2019s the misunderstanding of these categories that makes public debate feel so rigid and divided. Our neighbors or relatives become our enemies, and communication ceases. That is why President Dallin H. Oaks, President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, suggested that going forward, \u201cWe need to work for a better way \u2014 a way to<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org\/article\/president-dallin-h-oaks-speech-university-of-virginia\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> resolve differences without compromising core values<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> .. [and] to live together in peace and mutual respect.\u201d This is not only a spiritual ideal, but the blueprint for a healthy civic society.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Distinguishing between our core and relative values changes how we manage disagreement. It doesn\u2019t mean wavering our convictions, but understanding that others may assign values differently for reasons unknown to us.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The path to national healing begins with something as small yet profound as \u201c[living] in a way<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/wheatley.byu.edu\/mitt-romney-2025-george-w-romney-lecture-on-public-service\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> that\u2019s in harmony<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> with our core values.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Accepting this invites us to approach the public square in humility: What is the value of this issue for my fellow Americans? What are its costs? Is it symbolic for others, and just pragmatic for me?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Answering these questions\u2014the questions of value\u2014is at the heart of enjoying a pluralistic society. This allows for relationships with those across the political spectrum. As Bruce C. Hafen, a former general authority of The Church of Jesus Christ, explained, \u201c<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.religiousfreedomlibrary.org\/documents\/religious-freedom-and-the-habits-of-the-heart\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">value-generating<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and value-maintaining associations \u2026 teach and foster the greatest fullness of life.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Holding that five-dollar bill, I realized that value itself is a moral obligation. Our everyday actions show how we assign value in our treatment of individuals with differing priorities. To strengthen our communities, we can stand for core values and collaborate on relative ones. We can \u201c[find] a way to disagree that <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nga.org\/disagree-better\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">moves us toward solutions<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> rather than deepening divides.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So, the next time you pick up a fiver or think of Honest Abe, reflect on your hierarchy of values. Which are core values? Which are negotiable? How can you offer others the same dignity you demand for yourself?<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>National healing begins when core convictions remain firm while practical disagreements leave room for compromise.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":422,"featured_media":66714,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[472],"tags":[66,314,153,2146,102,779,25,113,258,194,144,540,68,27,82],"coauthors":[2145],"class_list":["post-66710","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dialogue","tag-civility","tag-community","tag-compromise","tag-core-values","tag-dallin-h-oaks","tag-democracy","tag-dialogue","tag-disagreement","tag-humility","tag-peace","tag-perspective","tag-politics","tag-respect","tag-the-public-square","tag-tolerance"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>How Core Values Shape Political Conflict - Public Square Magazine<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Core values shape public debate by clarifying what must remain firm and what can be negotiated in the public square with humility, dignity, and civic trust.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/publicsquaremag.org\/dialogue\/what-a-lost-five-dollar-bill-taught-me\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How Core Values Shape Political Conflict - Public Square Magazine\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Core values shape public debate by clarifying what must remain firm and what can be negotiated in the public square with humility, dignity, and civic trust.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/publicsquaremag.org\/dialogue\/what-a-lost-five-dollar-bill-taught-me\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Public Square Magazine\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-05-25T15:02:58+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/publicsquaremag.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Five-dollar-bill.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1536\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"768\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"McKay Winder\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"McKay Winder\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"NewsArticle\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/publicsquaremag.org\\\/dialogue\\\/what-a-lost-five-dollar-bill-taught-me\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/publicsquaremag.org\\\/dialogue\\\/what-a-lost-five-dollar-bill-taught-me\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"McKay Winder\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/publicsquaremag.org\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/7f566622ef3a6b52a9800d4015a25724\"},\"headline\":\"What a Lost Five-Dollar Bill Taught Me\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-05-25T15:02:58+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/publicsquaremag.org\\\/dialogue\\\/what-a-lost-five-dollar-bill-taught-me\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":849,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/publicsquaremag.org\\\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/publicsquaremag.org\\\/dialogue\\\/what-a-lost-five-dollar-bill-taught-me\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/publicsquaremag.org\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/05\\\/Five-dollar-bill.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Civility\",\"Community\",\"Compromise\",\"Core values\",\"Dallin H. 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