The "Cop" of Salvation?
By Kelly Petersen
Christine Miserandino’s Spoon Theory provides a powerful metaphor for understanding how energy is managed when living with chronic illness, disability, or neurodivergence. Each “spoon” represents a unit of energy, and daily tasks—such as getting dressed, cooking, working, and even socializing—each use up spoons.
Unlike someone with endless energy reserves, a spoonie has to choose carefully where their spoons go. I thought about this theory as I read from the Forward Day by Day scripture reading and reflection about Psalm 116:10-11. “How shall I repay the Lord for all the good things he has done for me? I will lift up the cup of Salvation and call upon the Name of the Lord.” After a trying week, I struggled to see the good things.
As someone living with chronic illness, disability, and neurodivergence, my cup feels like a constant reminder of how thirsty I am. After back-to-school shopping, orientations, beginning our homeschool program, and a mass shooting, I had a difficult time lifting my cup. I looked at my empty drawer of spoons and my empty cup, and struggled to stay awake.
Along a walk I forced myself to take, another Psalm came to mind, “Lord you alone are my portion and my cup, you make my lot secure.” I realized that in all of my shortcomings, I have not once stopped to see Jesus as my portion. Rather, the cup of salvation has become no different from any other program or status symbol.
The cup of salvation is a symbol of God’s deliverance, grace, and love, but through the lens of capitalism it becomes something you have to earn, purchase, and compete for. It’s no longer free, but we become slaves to it. The cup is commodified and secured through policing the portions and we defend our lot with great honor.
As the “cop” of salvation, we deem some deserving while others are excluded because they couldn’t afford the cup or aren't worthy. Our nervous systems are on high alert as they’re hardwired by a culture living in a constant state of hypervigilance, as written in My Grandmother’s Hands, by Resmaa Menakem. This survival wiring can cause police to misread situations, respond with excessive force, and perpetuate racialized violence.
My Grandmother’s Hands explains how true racial healing requires working through this embodied trauma—within Black, white, and police bodies—through practices of resilience, awareness, and healing. Our economic system in the U.S. was built on and sustained by slavery at its foundation. Until this is addressed, like in Resmaa Menakem’s somatic practices, power and profit will remain at our foundation.
Scarcity teaches us to see our spoons as tools of productivity and the cup of salvation as a measure of success. But when we reclaim our spoons as acts of radical self-care and receive the cup as pure gift, we step into healing. Side by side, the spoons and the cup remind us that God’s portion is not earned, purchased, or withheld—it is already secure, freely given, and overflowing.