The Values of Money
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I grew up poor, although I didn’t think we were. We always had food. My dad drove a car. I was on free lunch, but I figured it was because my dad lied on some form or other so that I could get free lunch. We didn’t look like poor people in the movies and TV shows. We lived in a house, and our lights never got turned off. It wasn’t until I started applying for college that I saw my dad’s tax returns and realized that we were living under the poverty line.
It wasn’t always like that. I think for a while we were middle class; as a little kid I remember taking a vacation to the East Coast once, and eating at nice restaurants. But something happened and we hit hard times. I found out other things later: that sometimes we didn’t have health insurance; that my mother and father got divorced because my mother was taking money from their joint account and investing it in pyramid schemes; that my relatives in the States send ten percent of their gross income back to our family in Malaysia.
I didn’t grow up afraid of money. Actually, all my cousins are accountants! It’s great—I’ve never done my own taxes. (I’m so grateful.) And they and my parents taught me healthy financial habits from a young age. Things like: “Don’t spend money before you’ve earned it.” “Treat your credit card like a debit card.” and “Your rent or mortgage should not exceed 30% of your gross income.” Even though money was this thing that went up and down a lot, nobody in my family has ever been afraid of money, and they didn’t teach me to be afraid of money.
Money wasn’t this mysterious force in our lives that we had no power over. Money was something that we could control—not always, but a lot of the time. And you could also control yourself. Is this thing at the store something that you need, or that you want? Can you ask for a raise at work? Can you take on a little extra work, maybe in the evenings or on weekends? Can you take night classes, increase your skills, get a better job?
I’m not saying that if you’re broke it’s your fault, and that you should stop buying frivolous things like beer or new clothes and that you should take more community college classes and pull yourself up by your bootstraps. I’m saying that I have this attitude that money doesn’t control me. I control the money. I might not have a lot of it. (I made less than thirty thousand dollars last year and flushed a third of it into school, so believe me, I don’t have a lot of it.) But I still make decisions about it. And what guides me in my decisions are my values as a Unitarian Universalist.
I’m actually going to borrow some Christian language for a minute, because I really like the way they put it. Some Christians refer to what they do with their money as stewardship of God’s wealth. This money is God’s, and they happen to be in possession of it right now. I like thinking about it that way. Stewardship of God’s wealth. Substitute whatever you want in place of God—Love. Justice. Peace. The Earth.
Money doesn’t control me. I don’t serve money. I serve higher causes. I use the money to serve higher causes.
Money isn’t for us to hoard and keep. You can’t take it with you, and you can’t swim around in a giant vault of gold coins like Scrooge McDuck. So then, what’s money really for? Well, you can leave it to your children. You can give some to your neighbor. You can give it to a struggling seminarian. You can give it to Amnesty International. You can give it to your church. Just an idea.
It may seem like I’m only talking to people who have money to give. I know that’s not true of everyone. Some of us are living on very fixed incomes—social security or disability payments or student loans. Some of us are living in our cars. Some of us are going to work hard our entire lives and never climb out of poverty. I see you, and I hear your pain and frustration. I might talk about how money isn’t for us to hoard and keep, while some people are thinking, Well, that’s fine for you to say, you have an income!
But wealth isn’t just money, either. It’s also time. And health, wisdom, skills. Those are also your wealth and your responsibility, and you should put them toward a higher service too, because you won’t have them forever.
It’s an obligation of those of us in this community who are in a better position to give a hand up to the ones who aren’t. Because we are Unitarian Universalists and we believe in the inherent worth and dignity of every person, not just the white and the able-bodied and the rich in money. We believe in justice, equity, and compassion in human relations. We believe in respect for the interdependent web of life of which we are all a part. And that means that the wealth you possess isn’t yours.
That wealth belongs to love, to justice, to goodness, to God. You just happen to be in possession of some of it right now, and for whatever reason, some of us are currently in possession of more wealth than others. But you can’t take it with you when you die.
So remember: this wealth that you are in possession of right now is temporary. Everything you think you own is temporary. Your house, your health, your dog, your church. I have childhood memories of eating at seafood restaurants, but by the time I graduated from high school the only places we could afford to eat out were places like Carl’s Jr. You might be in a good position now, but someday in the future, you might be the one who needs a hand up.
And when that happens, you’ll look to your neighbor. You’ll look to your church. You’ll look to your grown children. And you’ll be glad, then, for those shared values of compassion and generosity and justice, and for the good examples you set earlier.
So what are your values? What is important to you? The church? Your children? Our schools? Our parks? Black Lives Matter? It’s a huge responsibility, isn’t it?—deciding where to put your wealth, especially when that wealth is money. In this capitalist, free market world of ours money is power, and with great power comes great responsibility. The power and responsibility of being a Unitarian Universalist is about discerning your values, and then living them. And like it or not, part of living your values is putting your money where your mouth is. That’s how we can make capitalism work for justice.
I’m not saying this to make anyone feel guilty. I’m not saying that unless you sell all your possessions and donate the proceeds to Doctors Without Borders you’re not living your values. I’m saying that every dollar you spend is a deliberate choice, and that every choice you make has an opportunity cost. Every time you say Yes to something, you say No to something else. And every time you say No to something, you say Yes to something else.
Because your wealth doesn’t belong to you. You just happen to be in possession of it right now. And you get to choose how to spend it. So spend it as a Unitarian Universalist.
- The Values of Money - May 1, 2017
