I can remember my mother preaching: “Money is the root of all evil.” Her preaching was appropriate because we had little of either.
I am not one to downgrade money as a means of exchange – money for goods and money for services. But what happens when money becomes the meaning of life?
What happens to us when we dedicate our lives to its acquisition, that we judge our worth, our success, our power, our beauty, our intelligence and our right to dominate others depending upon how much money we have acquired?
What happens when we admire those who have much money, squeezed from the hides of helpless workers and we fail to recognize the mother, stricken with poverty, who, nevertheless, put her children though college. What about the father who dug ditches and cleaned latrines but set a role model of honest labor for his sons, while the corporate executive played money games on the stock market and wrested unearned bonuses from his shareholders?
This so-called down-turn in the economy is a danger to us. But as all dangers are likewise opportunities, these times give us an opportunity to rethink what is worthy of our admiration, both in ourselves and others.
As Sitting Bull said, “I have spoken.”
Gerry Spence's Blog 