Show Me The Money

Money, Money, Money

We’re having trouble coming up with the practical application of our money philosophy.

The most important thing to us is to just not care about money or possessions.  But putting that into practice is hard.

We love to give our money away.  But finding deserving parties in America can be tricky.

It seems that people who need money refuse it and people that are lazy and do not need help take advantage of the system.

A vast percentage of social welfare and charitable programs in this country don’t go towards food and shelter, but instead to Nintendos, lottery tickets, shoes named after athletes and cable television.

Helping people obtain these things doesn’t alleviate the effects of materialism, but instead further ingrains the harmful manifestations of materialism and the accumulation mentality.

Finding individual people to help is equally as difficult, because, as I said before, good people in genuine need of help are often prone to deny it.

The second part of our money philosophy is alleviating the burden on third world countries.

I hate to admit that popular media had an effect on us, but we saw Blood Diamond and the message hit home.  The truth is that all of our luxuries as Americans from laptop computers to designer clothes, not just diamonds, are bought and sold on the backs of third world countries.

Obviously we don’t want to support that.  But, even though these people are being taken advantage of, in many cases that is the only employment they can find.

If these people weren’t making our shoes for pennies an hour, they wouldn’t be making any pennies at all.

I suppose that in the long run the best idea is to boycott the industries that take advantage of people, but it does come at a cost to the people here and now.

Given these confusing limitations, our philosophy right now is simple: Use less, have less.

It seems to be working well.

When it comes to accepting charity, we’re still working it out.  For now, we don’t need any charity.

If we need help tomorrow, we’ll work on the net good policy.

If, by taking $10 worth of food from a food pantry we can continue doing what we’re doing and inspire our readers to donate $1,000 worth of food to their local pantries, than the system as a whole benefits.

If by taking donations, we can continue to do what we’re doing and inspire others to give more, than it’s worth it.

Above all, we have to remember that the goal of our donations/charity/etc., is to spread the love of Jesus.  Hopefully this can happen through the fulfillment of a genuine need.

It’s my observation that our charities, and most certainly our social welfare systems, are not spreading the love of Jesus but instead are breeding a selfish, materialistic, entitlement mentality which is worse than the condition of need.

Above all, it’s not stuff that people need, it’s Jesus.

We’re all going to die.  It’s hard to say, but what’s the point in prolonging life with charity if we’re not doing anything to reconcile people with God.

Without God, the end result is the same.  In the scope of eternity, now or 60 years from now is insignificant.

Comments

Ah, confusing limitations, indeed. You know, when my husband got laid off last year, we thought about doing something like you’re both doing now. We’d thought we’d travel the country. Help people. Be kindness gyspies. But we were too scared. So we moved to the suburbs instead. So here I sit in suburbia, behind a computer, following your story. You both challenge, inspire, confuse, and frighten me a bit. ...thanks.

“You say you got a real solution
Well, you know
We’d all love to see the plan
You ask me for a contribution
Well, you know
We’re doing what we can
But when you want money
for people with minds that hate
All I can tell is brother you have to wait
Don’t you know it’s gonna be all right
All right, all right
...You say you want a revolution
Well, you know
We all want to change the world...”

Hi guys,
I liked this entry a lot. I’m working on figuring out the best way to use money as well. But I have a question for you - what exactly are you doing? What are you referring to when you say we’ll keep doing what we’re doing? What kind of charities are you expecting people to donate to? Are you doing work that needs donations? I feel like I don’t understand what you’re doing, but I’d like to

this is pariticularly good thinking. it seems so obvious and simple on the one hand, but is actually so insidious and complex on the other. thanks for making me think without using the “f” word (a have a very fragile attention span). your father should be very proud of you.  i’m sure your mother treasures you as well. keep being the dream for us. peace.

Thanks for all the comments.

It’s hard to say what we’re doing for two reasons.

1. We don’t know, and we’re probably not doing much.

2. Matthew 6, which is kind of like pleading the fifth.  We’re not really sure what our place is to tell people about what we’re doing.  Pleading the Matthew 6 could even be too much.

Just like the best way to spend money, we’re still thinking through how much we can tell the audience too.

Thanks for reading.

Feel free to send any questions to simplyonelife@gmail.com, so that we can think through an answer and post it for everyone.

i’m glad you guys are still truckin’ away! it’s nice to see you made it past tennessee without dying:)

i’m wondering how you’ve formed this thought (if you’ve seen this is action, heard about it from others, etc)?  “A vast percentage of social welfare and charitable programs in this country don’t go towards food and shelter, but instead to Nintendos, lottery tickets, shoes named after athletes and cable television.” Just to challenge you to think a little differently about social welfare,it’s definitely not a vast percentage. the part of america not for social welfare (which is a big part) focus on people using that money to not “pull themselves up by their boot straps,” but instead to buying nintendos and lotto tickets. yes, the system is wack--most social welfare programs only give you, say $630/month.  if you get a job and you’re making $300/month, then the gov’t only gives you $330/month--you can only get a total of $630/month making it extremely difficult to get out of poverty.  There even used to be a stipulation that if you eventually make more than $630 you have to pay back the gov’t the funds you used. so maybe the problem is the gov’t regulations perpetuating this misuse of funds. (don’t go to work--you make the same anyway)? 

i’m passionate about what you guys are doing.  just remember, what’s important to you (food/shelter) might not be what’s most important for somebody else.  those athletic shoes might be the only thing giving that person some dignity and hope.  (but i also see your conflict in that it’s hard to give when you see somebody just buying shoes and not their basic needs).

anyway, i hope you guys keep on having a balla time--thanks for listening/reading my long social worker tangent:)