The Hard Truth About Money...

From Jim: Saw a news item this morning. A family has put up enough Christmas lights to create a $12,500 electric bill for the month. I'll grant you, it's pretty spectacular. Because our sanctuary struggles to keep enough feed for the critters and we're always behind on the vet bill and our household budget is always good for a laugh, I guess I don't see a real point to that kind of extravagance. I tend to think of what kind of good could be done with that money? What impact could be made? And, of course, that's simply a very small example of how we, as a society, fritter away our resources. Do people have every right to spend their money as they please? Absolutely! Do I have the right to make judgements about their choices? You bet! I'll go to a school board meeting today. We'll do the very best we can to use every single taxpayer's dollar to further the kid's education. There will be no conspicuous consumption, not a single nod to style, none of the "status symbol" stuff. Well, that might be expected, we're a public entity. How about the corporate excesses that drain our society's wealth into a culture of greed and misbehavior? We can surely see the ill effects of such avarice all around us. The celebration of a frenzy of buying and shopping and consuming as a measure of the success of the holidays is wrong-headed. If money is not doing good, taking care of real needs, creating a world of opportunity and well-being, I think it's pretty worthless. You can't eat it or drink it. It's not a useful building material. You can't take it with you. If you're on the proverbial "deserted island", it's not one of the ten things you want to have. No, money is stored up labor. It can be used to stem the social entropy which is always waiting to envelop us. Am I anti-capitalist? I don't think so, but I sure think those that currently define themselves as capitalists have lost their way. To gather money, for it's own sake, is just plain wrong. To acquire resources to do good -now that's the ticket! But then, we would have to really get down to what Christmas is supposed to be about, and that's not a spectacular lighting event. It would be about love and kindness and sharing and humility. Nope, we can't do that. Can we?