Ponderings

Recently I had the opportunity to spend the afternoon with my two older brothers. My role is the be the family bleeding heart socialist, my next older brother is a fiscal conservative that would like you to he is Mr. Potter (It’s a Wonderful Life), though in fact while he abhors spending money he is very generous. My oldest brother is himself pretty tight with the checkbook but has the most moderate views of my siblings. We’re all grown up now but still play pretty much the same roles we’ve always played.

Truth be told, we’re all pretty lucky financially. We’re all three employed with jobs we love (at least I love mine and they enjoy theirs!), jobs that provide financial stability for our families. Jeff has the most money in the bank, Norm lives the most frugally, and I have the most fun. Jeff is concerned about the financial markets collapsing, Norm is focused on getting his daughter through college, I tend to look at today’s balance sheet and proclaim it enough. The conversation was fun and, with spouses and parents not buffering the exchange, what emerged was an interesting display of our personality types.

Talking about money is rarely so much fun. There is no faster way to raise the temperature in our family room than to tell Gary about another pending expense. Quite frankly, American families are in trouble with money:
* About 43% of American families spend more than they earn each year.
* Average households carry some $8,000 in credit card debt.
* Personal bankruptcies have doubled in the past decade.
These grim statistics don’t even address the mortgage disaster or the looming and lasting effects of our national indebtedness. The market is down and energy prices are up, the tension is certain only to rise.

When the subject of money comes at in our church community, the movement is backward. Fear becomes the backdrop of the conversation. Anonymity, a nameless, faceless somebody, anybody but me, is pointed to as the great hope. Nowhere is a theology of scarcity more palpable than in our discussions about money. Undoubtedly our uncertainty with regards to financial security in our homes leaves us feeling at best timid, sometimes even catatonic, when the subject of money emerges in a wider community to which we belong.

James Caroll is a professor at Texas Tech that examined the effects of financial concerns on marital relationships. What he discovered was a surprise even to him.

“We need to rethink the idea that financial problems are always money problems,” said Carroll. Carroll said the conclusion that materialism can put a strain on a marriage is “common sense,” but said the truly interesting finding was that materialism could decrease marriage satisfaction even in higher-income couples. “Financial problems are as much a result of how we think about money as how we spend it,” Carroll said.
http://lists101.his.com/pipermail/smartmarriages/2007-March/003325.html

If financial problems are rooted not only in our bank accounts, but also in our hearts and our heads, money is a topic that we need to broach in our places of worship. Not simply, not even primarily, because the church needs money, though it does; but more because our spiritual and mental health is inextricably connected with our attitudes about money. The shame that shrouds the financial quandaries of our lives is a spiritual matter and is exacerbated when we, in the church, continue to talk about everything but money.

With gas prices over $4 a gallon and the electric bill up 40%, it’s time to make safe space to name our hopes and also our fears. I’m grateful for a safe space with my brothers. Safe space meant permission to name the fear and to own our own perspectives, to be heard with question but without shame. Safe space meant receiving the perspective of the other with good humor but without judgment. I look forward to more safe space in our community.