Sunday, March 6, 2016
The author of Money and Class in America and former editor of Harper’s Magazine, Lewis Henry Lapham, claims that:
“Money is like fire, an element as little troubled by moralizing as earth, air, and water. [We] can employ it as a tool, or dance around it as if it were the incarnation of a god. Money votes socialist or monarchist, finds a profit in pornography or translations from the Bible, commissions Rembrandt and underwrites the technology of Auschwitz. It acquires it meaning from the uses to which it is put.”
We know this—that money is a powerful force in our personal lives. It would seem then that it would be easy to figure out how to align our money with our priorities and with our values. But in fact, many people struggle with their relationship with money, whether rich or poor. It’s not just a simple matter of allocating the amount of money we have—our relationship to money reaches back further than our own personal existence and will have an impact beyond our own individual life.
Books and workshops about privilege inform us about complex systems of migration, commerce, scientific and technological development, race, gender roles, and political structures that have influenced how each person enters society from a different starting point. We’ve heard that expression, “she was born with a silver spoon in her mouth,” and we are also aware of caste societies in some parts of the world where one’s birth circumstances lay an impermeable ceiling over one’s potential for advancement, often so low as to be at a barely subsistence level.
We also know that we live in a society where we have far more class mobility than in many others. While it is true that some with a higher level of privilege find easier access to the education and connections and resources that will continue to augment their wealth and standing, there have been many cracks formally built into those systems, so that those who were once completely excluded can now find their way in—immigrants, women, people with physical disabilities, people of color, and other previously marginalized people. That work of changing those systems of privilege continues, and with a broader awareness of the interconnectedness of all life.
Today, the focus on the different treatment of people of color in the #BlackLivesMatter movement shines a light on the lived experience of those most impacted by the inequity in our justice system. We also see highly visible public witness actions that protest the power and inequity of the owning class to profit from the extraction of our planet’s resources. These actions would not have been imaginable a century ago. We have seen a huge flotilla of kayaks in San Francisco Bay protesting Arctic drilling, we’ve read of tree-sitters delaying the destruction of forests, we’ve heard of very local demonstrations delaying the construction of underground pipelines to transport fracked gas, and many more such efforts to bring a new sense of shared responsibility for our planet to the general public consciousness.
As we make decisions—large and small—our every action has an impact on the world we live in. Each decision has a subtle shaping effect on the world we are co-creating in every single moment. Paper or plastic. Throw away or recycle. This food or that food. This job or that job. Volunteer or don’t. This career or that career. Have a family or don’t. Support this charity or support that charity. Each decision has some impact, however large or small. How ever do we find a balance?
Finding that balance is, in fact, a spiritual quest. There is no one answer that is right for everyone. And balance, as you know, is ever shifting! Just as we find a balance, new energies and variables appear, such that we are actually performing an ongoing balancing act, like a tightrope walker, all of our lives.
The key to developing a strong spiritual grounding is not hidden in the world of the mind, the world of words and books. The key is in our ability to feel. The Pledge Drive Team has chosen as the theme for this year’s commitment season: “Give Until It….Feels Good.” Feelings are our greatest tool for personal insight, as they point to something that we know in our deepest selves. We know whether something feels right, or scary, or joyful, or icky, or desperate, even when we can’t articulate that in words. As babies and little children, we cry when we are uncomfortable, even if we have different thresholds that trigger that response. Feelings point to something that we know. Developing our ability to access and utilize those feelings is perhaps the greatest investment we can make to help us find balance in all the corners of our lives.
So we seek balance in our relationship with money, and we acknowledge that budgeting for our lives is more than a numerical exercise. We seek feedback as we develop the spiritual grounding that guides us in a balanced life, including in the realm of our material world and our relationship with money. Rev. William Sinkford wrote, “Like all other actions, how we use our financial resources is indeed a public expression of our hearts.”
And like everything, this is a circular process. In The Soul of Money: Transforming Your Relationship with Money and Life, Lynne Twist writes the following:
“When the use of money is consistent with our core values, it strengthens the quality of our commitment. It has a powerful impact on our ethical and moral fiber. We can begin by making a conscious effort to use our money with life-affirming purpose.”
My message to you this morning is not an appeal to your generosity. It is instead an appeal that you tend to your spiritual development, and continue your commitment to support one another in that journey that will continue your whole life. With a deep spiritual grounding you will feel—you will know—what is right and best for you at times like this, Commitment Sunday here at the UU Church of Reading. May that deep knowing bring you peace and joy.
May it be so. Blessed Be. Amen.
© C Senghas 2016