From Your Minister
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The story is told of Mulla Nasrudin, the Sufi wise fool. A rich man came to see him and said, “Nasrudin, if only you would learn to flatter the emperor and be subservient as I do, you would not have to live on chickpeas and bread.” The Mulla countered, “If only you would learn to live on chickpeas and bread, as I do, you would not have to flatter and live subservient to the emperor.”
Clearly, Nasrudin and the wealthy man have different understandings of what it means to live an abundant life. It is tempting for those of us who are economically comfortable to romanticize Nasrudin’s sense of abundance, and to dismiss the rich man’s. Yet, if I am honest, I live somewhere in between the two.
Sometimes I look back on “the good old days” when I paid bills month-to-month in my collective household, biked across town because I didn’t have bus fare, worked for minimum wage and only part-time at that, went without healthcare. There was always plenty of time to hang out with friends, do political work, bake bread, sing and dance. And yet, that isn’t the life I ultimately chose. I have opted for a work centered, home-owning, middle-class life with comforts and luxuries— vacations, a reliable car, meals in restaurants.
I know people who live with much more than I do, and people who live with much less. And what I have observed is that the sense of abundance that people live with is not always directly correlated with what people have, but more with how they feel about it. I was stunned a while ago when someone I know made an offhand remark about my being “rich.” I questioned her and said I was confident her household made significantly more than mine. When we compared numbers, I was right. Her income was almost twice what mine is.
Why, I asked her, did she think I had more? “Because,” she said, “I am always worrying about money, and you never seem to.” And I realized that she was right. Not worrying about money is, indeed, tremendous wealth.
When J.K. Rowling went from welfare mother to millionaire with her first Harry Potter book, a reporter asked her what she was most excited to buy. She responded that the reporter didn’t understand at all what it was like to be poor. What was best about being rich wasn’t thinking about treats to buy; it was the privilege of not thinking about money at all!
I worked with a teacher named Ruth Hayden—check out her excellent books—about money and planning for retirement. One statement that Ruth made really stayed with me. Her definition of debt is “anything that you pay today for yesterday’s living.” This definition goes far beyond bills racked up on credit cards or student loans, although they are included. It extends to all of the things we have to take care of today because we didn’t take care of them yesterday. This might include too much stuff in our houses, appliances in need of repair, rotting teeth, extra weight on our bodies, damaged relationships. Hayden encourages people to get rid of all of these kinds of debt so that we can truly live in the present.
Of course, many of us inherit debts at birth and build them during our lifetimes in ways that we have no control over. We were born into an alcoholic family, where a relationship of trust and honesty is impossible, and the lies built up. We were born into poverty, and learned to worry about money when we are far too young to be able to earn or save any. We were born into a society which has historically disrespected our race, or gender, or physical ability, and we must live with that historic and present day marginalization, even as we try to be full participants in the world.
Any theory of getting out of debt which does not respect the real differences between the kinds of debt that people inherit borders, I believe, on cruelty. And yet, even amid this mess of inequality in wealth, love, and respect, people still find peace of mind—abundance—in a variety of ways. The choice to live as debt-free as possible is an admirable one for all of us. Ridding ourselves of past debts is our best shot at experiencing abundance, day to day.
Striving to live debt-free means that each day we care as much as possible for the business which is ours to care for, so that tomorrow we don’t carry still more of a burden. Of course we’re human, and we do it imperfectly. But each day, we do what we can to stay even with ourselves, whatever that looks like in our world. We do our best to offer what we have to help others attain a similar place of abundance. Only when we have the trust and generosity to give to others and know we’re still going to be okay, will we know true abundance.
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