The 'All Mighty' Dollar

I was at church on Sunday and I heard mention of, 'the all mighty dollar'. It made me think (and stop listening), isn't there only one 'All Mighty'? And if my understanding of other teachings at church are correct, it's not money. And this is what I thought about in church instead of what was being discussed...

Money is treated a lot like a god. I'm going to take a step out of my religious understandings and present this from the perspective of the people. I don't know who 'the people' are, but I'm going with what I think most people believe.

Those who believe in God generally believe that he is all powerful. He (God is generally referred to as a He, although some seem to be feminizing God... I think) is immense and incomprehensible. He can cause any change to come about that He wants and He is all controlling. While no one, or at most very few (I think there is some debate there), have seen God, they know that he exists because of His power and works.

Now let's compare that with money. Is money all powerful? The phrase about the 'all mighty dollar' certainly suggests that it is. Is money immense and incomprehensible? I think that pretty much sums up the economy. When I get ready to leave for school in the mornings, I listen to NPR and I almost always get the economic reports. I am fascinated by how many professional economists there are and how they can all have differing views. That is quite similar to all of the various preachers across the country that all believe in a God, but see Him quite differently. Does money cause change to come about? How many of you were 'rewarded' financially for good grades? or for performing better at work? So money seems to make change come about as dictated by the controller of the money (remind me that I need to talk about the controller of the money at some point). So how many people have actually seen money? Sure, we've got that stuff in our wallets that we can exchange for goods, but paper has little value at all. The stuff in your wallet represents gold that is on reserve at Fort Knox (I believe). Have you seen the gold represented by the paper in your wallet? I haven't. We can even take this a step further with online banking. My paycheck is automatically deposited into my account and then I use a credit card to pay for things and send a check in every month to pay off my credit card bill. I never see money, and if it weren't for the check that I wrote I could never really have any tangible proof of money existing (that's really sort of scary on some levels).

Let's talk about a golden calf. Wasn't there a group in the Bible that got in trouble for worshiping a golden calf? (I'll give you a hint, the answer is yes). The problem with the golden calf thing was that God told the people not to put any god before Him. I think that's a reasonable request since He is all powerful and the creator of everything we have, including ourselves.

Now I want to make a distinction that is very important. Golden calves aren't bad, it is the worship of the golden calf that caused the problem. Having a golden calf in your yard may get the fashion police after you because it is sort of tacky, but I don't think God cares if you own a golden calf or not. The important thing is that you don't worship the golden calf. When you place the golden calf in a position equal to God, then God gets mad and we have problems.

Likewise money isn't inherently bad. While I like the idea of bartering for all of my purchases, I don't have much to give. My garden has zucchini (which I have to pay people to take) and green tomatoes. I could trade my knowledge for your food... in fact, since most of my knowledge is about weight control and obesity prevention, that might work out really well for you. The point is that bartering won't always work so money is essential.

So here is the big question, do we worship our money or use it for its intended purpose. How about if we talk about faith. In the Bible (Hebrews 11:1) it says that "faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen". So while our money isn't really substantive, we certainly hope that it has value and while we've never seen the gold it is based on, we have before purchased with the paper stuff and received goods in return. It seems like we have faith in money. How much to we rely on God for those things that we hope for? How often to we recognize God's work as evidence of things that we can't see? Sorry, that got a little preachy and that wasn't what I was going for.

We seem to have faith in money, but that may not be the end of the world. Jesus said, "Come follow me". How much time and energy to we spend following Jesus and how much time and energy do we spend following money? While it's important to note that those two things are not mutually exclusive, we need to be attentive to what we are following.

In my hour of thinking about money and how god-like it can be, I was amazed at the examples I could come up with where people follow money and it really becomes like a god. While the point of this post wasn't to bring a non-believer to believe in God, I think that it is crucial that money does not become the god that we all worship, although I think we may already be pretty close to being there.


P.S.
So who are the controllers of money (you forgot to remind me)? I would say there are two ways of looking at it. Number one, you can say that big business and government control money. They decide who makes the money and they decide which businesses get the benefits. There's a lot of corruption in these areas and it's scary to think of them as the controller of our god. Number two, you could say that we, the consumer are the controllers of the money. Big business will listen to what consumers want, otherwise they will not longer be in business. Do you want an opportunity to have real power in this world? Do you want to be the source of big and great changes in the world around you? Then put your money toward what you really believe and don't give any to those you would consider the problem.

I'm done ranting for the day. At least online.

Mugwump

This post is sort of about bragging, as was yesterday. I don't have much time, but I just want to recount a conversation I had with my 4 year old son.

Mugwump: Dad, can we go to Lego Land this afternoon?

Dad: No, Lego land is in California, we are in Utah, it would take more than a day to get there.

Mugwump: Can we go the next day, you can not go to school.

Dad: I have to go to school and work, besides, we're poor, we don't have the money to get to California, let alone get into Lego land.

Mugwump: We're not poor, our family is rich. We have each other.

Dad: You're right.

I don't know that I've ever been prouder in my life.

Money

I received a comment the other day about making money but using it for good causes. I think this is sort of a sticky point, so I want to discuss it. First off, I think that this is often a cop-out. You like your lifestyle, you like your stuff, so surely the little that you donate to a good cause entitles you to have more stuff than the guy that doesn't donate as much as you. I think that mentality is the reason we are battling to keep up with the Joneses.

I also want to be clear that I don't think that everyone who has money is like that. I know that when I was in high school my family all moved away and I had nowhere to live. A friend's family took me in and gave me EVERYTHING! They had more money than I did and they used to to serve me. I am EXTREMELY grateful for their generosity and I'll never be able to fully express to them how much I appreciated what they did for me. If they had less money, or had not used their money to have extra room in their home, would I have been able to live there? I don't know. But I do know that I hope to someday be able to provide the same experience to a youth in a similar situation. I could think of nothing more rewarding than to use my resources to serve people as I have been served by others who have more than me.

Do you see why this just got sticky? I really like the idea of simplifying so that I can work a part time job and have more time to spend with my kids and family. But if I do that, how will I have the resources to really help people? ...I wouldn't.

If you know anything about me, you know that I'm currently working on a PhD in Health Promotion. Although it would be a fun twist of irony, I don't intend to work part time at McDonald's when I'm done here. I intend to get a job and make a reasonable salary. I want to spend my carreer helping people healthier and I hope to help people on a larger than individual level. I want to make the world a better place for those who will follow me. In so doing, I'm going to make money. By many standards, I'm going to make a lot of money.

So am I a complete hypocrite? Maybe. I'll be honest with you, I'm afraid to make more money than I currently make. I like my simple lifestyle and know that it helps me keep my priorities straight. If I have access to more money, things could certainly change, and that scares me.

Then comes the big question. If you make more than you absolutely need, what do you do with the rest of your money? I see a couple of options. You could donate it to good causes. I heard somewhere that Bill Gates makes over 50% of all of the charitable contributions made in the United States. I don't know for sure if that is true, but I do know that he does a lot of good with his money. I also know that he has a LOT left over and he has a lot of stuff. In many ways I like the idea of donating money to good causes, but I like to see what my money does. I would really like to take homeless people out to dinner or hire them to do jobs and help them build skills. Anyway, I can cross that bridge when I come to it.

Another thing to do with money is not to spend it, but to invest it so that I could retire early and spend my days farming on my little organic farm in Maine. For some reason that just seems really greedy... It also sounds a lot like something I would like to do. I suppose I could do a lot of good on my organic farm in Maine. This just got really sticky. I am glad that I can live below the poverty level for now so I can procrastinate making those decisions.

Anyway, I don't have solutions. I know that I don't want to use my money to accumulate stuff. I want to maintain simplicity and maybe help others do the same thing. I would also like to support more things that are in line with my ideals (organic beeswax soap, for example), that I just don't have the money to do now.

So what would you use your money for?