Money

I've seen a few things written about money, lately, that make me wonder what in the world some people are thinking.  I saw on facebook one of those pictures of a famous person with their quote photoshopped over their image. It was an image of Richard Buckminster Fuller (yeah, I had to Google him, too.  inventor, architect, author, ... and futurist!) They used this quote of his.  "We must do away with the absolutely specious notion (wrong or misleading.  I had to look this up, too) that everybody has to earn a living. It is a fact today that one in ten thousand of us can make a technological breakthrough capable of supporting all the rest. The youth of today are absolutely right in recognizing this nonsense of earning a living. We keep inventing jobs because of this false idea that everybody has to be employed at some kind of drudgery because, according to Malthusian-Darwinian theory (survival of the fittest), he must justify his right to exist. So we have inspectors of inspectors and people making instruments for inspectors to inspect inspectors. The true business of people should be to go back to school and think about whatever it was they were thinking about before somebody came along and told them they had to earn a living."  And this quote was interpreted, by the poster and the comments, as meaning that people today don't need to earn a living (have a job to make money) because one person in every 10,000 people can make a technological breakthrough and earn enough money to support the slackers other 10,000 people.  And again, to these people who have no desire to work and earn money, they say that money is meaningless.  I believe what Bucky is saying here is there shouldn't be an artificial job created to employ people to artificially decrease unemployment levels.  I don't believe he meant that only 1 in 10,000 people need to work or that one rich person should pay for the care and feeding of 10,000 people that do not want to work.  People should do work that is useful and then they don't justify their reason for existence, they HAVE a reason for existence.

Another person feels that money is a trap. She feels it is an illusion. She says the illusion of money is not a feeling, it's simple truth. She says people have decided that certain things would be worth something, and so they are. Period.  And yet, another person hates money. She hates that her husband works a job that he doesn't really like to make money to pay for a house they can't afford and bills and for things they don't really need.  (so why did they buy these things?)  She then goes on to tell us that she would like the church she attends to allow them to live in a house on a property the members of this church bought and allow them to start a commune and have multiple people or families living in the house.  (I'm guessing it's ok for the church people to be caught in the money trap and have to work for the money to pay for this property, just not her)  Anyway, this goes on and on and makes no sense to me.  I know there are always going to be people with their hands out.  People who think that because they don't WANT to work, they don't HAVE to work. 

I think these people hate NOT HAVING money.  They don't hate money, itself.

I've written here about money.  I respect money and I don't believe it is meaningless.

I once gave a Children's Sermon in a church.  In it I showed the children some money.  I showed them a crisp, brand new one dollar bill, a really old and worn one dollar bill, and one dollar bill that I ripped in half and then taped back together.  I asked the children which of the one dollar bills was worth the most?  At first, most of them said the new one was worth the most, but when I asked them if anyone wanted the old one, or the one that was torn and taped, yeah, they wanted them.  I asked them why they wanted them?  They said, they wanted the dollar so they could spend it.  I then took the new crisp one dollar bill and crumpled it up.  Then I put it on the floor and stepped on it.  I really stepped on it hard and stamped it into the floor.  I asked the children if the dollar was worth the same now, as it was before I crumpled it up.  They were getting the point.  A dollar is worth a dollar, no matter what condition it is in.  You can still take it to the store and spend it.

Then I said, we are like these dollars to Jesus.  We have worth to him no matter what condition we find ourselves.  Sometimes we are ripped or broken and we don't get put back together just right, like a soldier who has been injured in a war or a child who is born with cerebral palsy or downs syndrome, but to Jesus, we all have the same value.  Sometimes people are very old and don't look so good anymore and cannot do very much anymore.  They are frail and tattered at the edges.  When Jesus looks at them he sees they are just as valuable as a younger person.  Sometimes we start out nice and clean and new, but then someone makes us feel bad and hurts us and steps on us and treats us like we are worthless, but to Jesus we still have the same value we always had.

It makes me sad to think there are people out there that do not value or respect money and see it as meaningless.  It makes me angry that there are people out there that don't want to work, but are quite happy to have me or the government give them the money I earn.  Maybe the just want someone else to take care of them?  Maybe they think they are better than those of us working for a living?  I guess if I told this little story to someone that believes money is meaningless, they wouldn't understand it. 

425.  A (sorta) apology from my boss for the meeting screw-up
426.  Bible study tonight, and I'm really looking forward to it
427.  A project at work that is interesting and something I can succeed at
428.  Squash juice, it's better than it sounds