It's time to start talking about money. For a change.

For years, I told myself, "Oh, I'm not interested in money. It's impersonal and corrupting. What I'm interested in, are things that money just can't buy."

But as my life has grown and expanded, I've found myself dealing more and more with an ever enlarging world, where the opportunity to do work-exchanges or barter, hasn't presented itself. I'm dealing a lot more, every day, with people I've never met before. People who have things to offer me, and services I need, who aren't willing to "work a trade" of my web-building expertise for their services. The arborist who's pruning my trees, can't make use of my abilities. Nor can the farm stand down the road. And frankly, they haven't got the time for me to explain to them just how much good a website will do them.

They need money.

I'm also coming across an increasing number of folks who are working for positive change in the world, who have real financial needs. They need to print educational materials. They need to pay for plane fares. They need to pay for internet connectivity. And they need to support themselves and their families, while they work to effect lasting change in a needy world. These are not selfish people. These are selfless, giving individuals, who deserve to have all their human needs met, while working day and night for the benefit of humanity.

They need money.

I was raised in a counter-culture household, where money was often seen as a corrupting influence. The rich were suspect. The super-rich were condemned. People who had lots of money, were generally held in suspicion of having done something unsavory to get that way. Money, I was taught, was a root of evil and a temptation and it had a strictly limited place in the lives of people who knew that the best things in life were free. Community and personal interconnection were stressed. Alternative means of living were emphasized. It was easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than it was to get into heaven, if you were rich.

And of course, we all wanted to get into heaven. Who wouldn't?

But in spite of my training, hidden away from sight in the back of my mind, I've always been of the conviction that money does matter, that money is not evil, in and of itself, and that in the right hands, a lot of money can do a lot of good. I kept it to myself, of course. I didn't dare say out loud that money itself was not the culprit, but the people who controlled the money were. It was a foregone conclusion that, no matter how virtuous you were, if you got some money, you'd be irreversibly tainted and all your attentions would turn inward towards yourself -- at the expense of the greater whole.

Biases against money were -- and still are -- so deeply entrenched, that questioning them instantly puts one in the same category as the ultra-evil ultra-rich. Even mentioning that we might want to rethink our ideas about money, is viewed askance.

But ironically, the very people who once taught me that money is a source of evil, are now interested in having more of it in their lives. My parents, who tried to instill other values in me, are nearing retirement, with far too little saved, for comfort. My father is shepherding an educational initiative which has great potential to change lives, but he lacks the funding to really make it fly. Pamphlets and booklets need to be printed, and the printer doesn't work for free. Airfare costs money. Gasoline costs money. He can stay with friends when he travels from town to town, but he needs to eat. And he needs to pay for his computer supplies and internet connection. My mother is worried, they won't have enough money to support themselves, when she retires from public school teaching next year. Yes, she's got a pension, and Dad might be getting a grant or a loan, but will it be enough? What if their health fails? What about the vacations they want to take? After all these years, of not putting emphasis on not letting money run their lives, suddenly, money is the main thing running their lives.

It's time to start talking about money. We live in a big, complex, highly-interconnected world where value of one object or service does not translate equally between individuals. We live in a world where bartering doesn't cut it, where we have bills and expenses and fundamental needs, which need to be met with money. We live in a world, where local businesses are threatened by multinational conglomerates, and local craftsmen are losing ground to DIY warehouse stores. We live in a world, where we need money, and we ignore this element of our lives at our peril.

So, let's put aside all the fear and aggravation around money, for a while, and start talking about it and thinking about it rationally. A lot of "survival issues" come up, as money is a root cause -- of tremendous good, as well as some evil. Money is so closely tied to our will to live, our fears of dying, our anxieties about abandonment, our feelings of self-worth and love from others, it can be difficult to separate out all that baggage from the element itself.

But guess what -- that's just something we have to learn to do. Just as we've learned, over the past 50 years, how better to work with our natural world, reduce pollution, and protect valuable land, water and air, it's now time to learn to work with our money -- learn how to approach it, not as slaves, but as masters. Not as beggars, but as co-creators. It's time for us to start trusting ourselves to use money, to wield it properly, as a trained craftsman wields a circular saw. It's time for us to give serious and concentrated thought to how to better incorporate money in our lives, as a good and constructive force for positive change.

Let's think well about money -- for a change.



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