I was chatting with an artist friend at his gallery a couple of months ago. The conversation was about the evil condition of needing money, and how it competes with the desire to produce one’s art.
He said something profoundly simple that night: “You don’t need stuff.”
As anyone who reads here regularly is, I’m sure, sick of hearing me lament, I find it difficult enough to balance the job that pays the bills with words inside of me that are screaming to get out. I’m thrilled to say that Karen and I are (typically) disciplined with our finances and dedicated to responsibly funding our future. Naturally, we occasionally buy a new toy (just tonight, we were discussing Christmas gift wishes). I suppose that’s a typically American stance.
As we drove through one of the wealthier neighborhoods in town a few weekends ago, however, I found myself gazing at the beautiful homes and recalling my friend’s words: “You don’t need stuff.” I remembered another friend, a musician, stating how irritating it was for him when he and his wife accumulated too much stuff, and how they would periodically go through their garage and basement and purge the un-necessaries. I thought about mine and Karen’s current income (both respectable professional salaries) and did the math on how amazingly short we would fall if desiring a home of that nature, and how much more intense a job I would need, and how many hours a week I would find myself slaving (at the expense of writing and theatre, my two loves) to pay for it, as well letting the two most critical relationships in my life (Karen and God) suffer dramatic decline. The immediate result of my cost-benefit analysis: its not worth it.
Ever.
Yet our culture is built around money. The numbers in our bank accounts are the single most powerful motivator in our lives. I heard a story tonight about someone who couldn’t buy the medicine they needed, and considered how perverse it is that they would need to pay for their own health. I see presidential campaigns being measured by how many millions of dollars they have raised, as if this were a measure of their potential political success, and my stomach turns. If only we as a people could realize the impact of my friend’s words. We truly just don’t need the stuff.
Or, as God put it, money is the root of all evil, and your heart is where your treasure is.
How in the world can we manage to connect with God and with those around us? How can we spare the time when we must be slaves to the required income to maintain our toys?
How can we navigate around all this stuff?
