Moolah

Posted on May 20, 2006 in Class Morals & Ethics

I have a philosophy of money which is out of sync with the practices of many people around me. I don’t believe in giving money for the purpose of promoting my personal views. This puts me outside the local circle of churches which collect money in the name of promoting The Idea.* If I give money for hurricane relief victims, I want to give it to people who will take it straight to them, who won’t be jigging to the prospect of winning their souls/minds to The Cause. I would sooner give a few dollars to a man squatting in the street knowing that he might drink it up than I would to one in a suit who tells me that he will give it to the first man because I know that all too large a fraction of that will go to buying a few threads in that pressed suit.

Jesus had no suburch and he went everywhere on foot. You’ll find no Hummers in his parking lot. He doesn’t even have a parking lot.

Money is an idea, a symbol to which we are addicted. Once Near Eastern traders enclosed clay sheep inside clay envelopes to mark the exchange of animals. Men became enamoured of gold and used the wheels of the sun to represent cargoes and obligations. It is not money men want but the power over humans. This is why certain evangelists and pastors crave it so. This is why Christ and why the Buddha eschewed it in their personal lives because they did not seek power over others, they sought to possess it only over themselves.

The canyons around me are filled with people whose riches exceed those of the petty desert Mammons who invited Jesus’s wrath, all encased in dwellings sometimes comprising as little as 600 square feet. (Mea culpa!) We may be rich in material possessions but many are poor in power, denied even the power over self** that Jesus and Buddha directed us towards. To live in these canyons is to exist in a problematic relationship with morality. And too many among us hector gays, lesbians, scientists, and rationalists because they would rather be part of a hymn-jeering crowd than alone. We must not be afraid of being alone and we must never see money as anything more than a convenience, the central element of compassionate and regulated exchange.

* * * * *

*I use the term “The Idea” because what is promoted as Christianity in these parts is often nothing more than a neon cross. Come to think of it, that’s not much of an Idea. Nor is such blatant trademarking Christianity. The Cross has gone beyond its use as a simple sign and become an idol.

**Another name for this is accountability. When money erases accountability and when we make excuses for the wealthy and the powerful, its use has become immoral. Those who do not speak out against this and who actively counsel/aid the abusers are complicit in the offense.