Luther: valuing rightly

This is a great on a number of levels, especially two.  1st: recognising the value of things without losing perspective;  2nd: giving me implicit permission to be able to say "strumpet" in church.

A sanctified and upright Christian says: My wife, my children, my art, my wisdom, my money and wealth, help and avail me nothing in heaven; yet I cast them not away nor reject them when God bestows such benefits upon me, but part and separate the substance from the vanity and foolery which cleave thereunto. Gold is and remains gold as well when a strumpet carries it about her, as when `tis with an honest, good, and godly woman. The body of a strumpet is even as well God’s creature, as the body of an honest matron. In this manner ought we to part and separate vanity and folly from the thing and substance, or from the creature given and God who created it.

Tabletalk 294