Money

 

Published May 3, 2007

 

In his April 29 letter “There was a time when people got involved” John Grigsby stated that the loss of community spirit among Americans is the result of “greed.”

 

Rather than “greed,” I think “desire for money” would be more accurate.

 

In our culture, money represents power, and it is the feeling of having no power that causes one to crave things that may give us power or, more accurately, the illusion of power.

 

In Book 1 of “Conversations with God,” Neale Donald Walsch points out that all human actions are motivated by either love or fear.  Those who live in love give freely of themselves.  Those who live in fear are the people who steal, hoard, deceive, and otherwise seek to gain an advantage over their fellow man.

 

I think Americans, in general, are the most fearful people in the world.  This, combined with the notion, instilled in us from childhood, that we must “pull our own weight” and “not be a burden” on our fellow citizens makes many people feel isolated from the human community and thus desirous of the only way we know to attain power – accumulating money.

 

In many other cultures (and in poor and immigrant communities here) the immediate community is very much an “extended family,” providing support for all members.  Members of these communities seem to view their neighbors as allies in the fight for survival.

 

For many Americans who have achieved some degree of material “prosperity,” (usually through excessive debt, unfortunately), the fear of becoming a burden on one’s neighbors has a mirror-image of disdain for anyone who does.

 

It seems to me that finding “security” (a feeling of power over one’s life) in a nurturing, understanding and supportive community would be much easier and, surely, more healthy, than spending one’s life trying to accumulate money.