Money and the Meaning of Life

People have many views of money. Groucho Marx said, "Money is a good thing to have. It frees you from doing things you dislike. Since I dislike doing nearly everything, money is handy."

Francis Sagen said, "Money may not make us happy, but I'd rather cry driving a Jaguar then cry riding on a bus."

An anonymous consumer was heard to say "Those who say that money can't buy happiness don't know where to shop."

D. H. Lawrence presented his view of money in a story called "The Rocking-Horse Winner." "Although they lived in style," Lawrence wrote of his fictional family, "They felt always an anxiety in the house . . . There was always the grinding sense of the shortage of money, though the style was always kept up . . . And so the house came to be haunted by the unspoken phrase: There must be more money! There must be more money! The children could hear it all the time, though nobody said it aloud. They could hear it at Christmas, when the expensive and splendid toys filled the nursery. Behind the shining modern rocking horse, behind the smart doll's house, a voice would start whispering: 'There must be more money! There must be more money!' "

One of the children began betting on horses races in league with the gardener. Before long, the boy managed to turn a few pennies into a small fortune. The child arranged to have the fortune given to his mother, anonymously. Lawrence wrote: "Then something very curious happened. The voices in the house suddenly went mad, like a chorus of frogs on a spring evening. Debts were paid off. New luxuries were bought, and yet the parents' voices simply trilled and screamed in a sort of ecstasy: 'There must be more money! Oh-h-h; there must be more money. Oh, now, now-w! Now-w-w-there must be more money -- more than ever! More than ever!' "

I have to confess that I sometimes feel this money anxiety myself, and I have been trying to understand where it comes from inside me. With me the feeling is like fear. I fear that I will somehow mismanage my life so that I will run out of money. I fear I will not be able to fulfill my financial responsibilities and commitments. Over the years others, especially men have confided to me that they have the same nagging fear.

This is not an easy topic to discuss. In someways talking about money in public, in church, is as much a taboo as talking about sex. These are private matters that are uncomfortable, and awkward to explore.

Yet the Gospels of Matthew and the Gospel of Luke both quote Jesus as saying "What you treasure is your heart's true measure." Put in modern language, we cannot separate our financial lives from our religious lives.

Where do my own feelings, my fears about money come from? They come first of course from my childhood experiences. I grew up in Arizona in the 1950s. My father was an engineer and worked for the Department of the Interior in Phoenix. My mother was a social worker working for the American Red Cross. We lived a comfortable middle-class life. There was always money for food, clothing, and shelter, plus the extras of YMCA summer camp and vacations to visit relatives in other states each summer. Yet I grew up with anxiety about how I would earn a living when I became an adult. No doubt some of this is cultural. In the 1950s boys learned at an early age that society expected us to be the primary bread earners in a family. I was not a good student and my teachers explained to me that if I did not do better, I would end up as a ditch digger. Such comments were one source of my anxiety about money.

I also heard stories, as I was growing up from my parents and from others, about the depression. My father's mother made a living as a school teacher in the back hills of eastern Kentucky after her husband died in the 1919 flu epidemic. Coming into adulthood during the depression was not easy for my father. My mother's father was a bank manager in Idaho. In the 1930s he lived with the constant anxiety that the bank he managed would fail. I grew up with depression stories, and with a basic fear that some day the country's economy might fail again.

One result of the anxieties that my parents had about money was that they put me to work as soon as possible. My first job was during the summer when I was fourteen. I worked for the county, building and setting up concrete foundations for rifle targets at the county rifle range out on Black Canyon Highway. My second job was more politically correct. I was a dishwasher at a Unitarian Universalist summer camp in the Mountains east of Los Angeles. Then I worked as a sale person at a men's clothing store. Altogether I held sixteen different jobs during high school college and graduate school. Although in my family we always had enough, there was an atmosphere of scarcity because both my mother and father had come of age during the depression.

When I moved away from home to go to college I took pride in living frugally. For example, I lived in the cheapest housing available. My best deal was a place called the A to Z Apartments that I rented for $70 dollars a month. I shared the apartment with my friend Ben Friedman and several thousand roaches. Ben is now a corporate lawyer in New York City. In graduate school I shared $120 a month apartment with Mark Belletini and several thousand other roaches. Mark is now a minister in California and was chairperson of the committee that produced our Hymnal.

While in graduate school I lived on about four thousand dollars a year, including tuition. I did not have a car or a television or a record player or even a radio. I had one suit, which I got at a discount store for $40. I wore the suit to officiate at weddings, which helped me pay for my tuition. I did not suffer. I felt blessed and privileged both in college and later in graduate school studying for the ministry. It was one of the richest and most stimulating periods of my life. During seminary I attended the Unitarian Universalist Church in San Francisco. However, I did not make a pledge to the church.

After finishing graduate school, I went to serve my first church as a minister. For the first time I was earning a regular salary. I bought a small car and got an apartment that had only a few roaches. And I made a pledge to the church for the first time in my life. Following the advice of an older minister I respected, I gave 5 percent of my income to the church. That was frightening for me to do. All my childhood anxiety said: "Don't give away your money, you never know when the next depression will hit." Simultaneously, the consumer side of me said: "You are in your mid 20s. Isn't time that you indulged yourself?" In response to this voice I did buy a radio and couch and chair to furnish my apartment. Nevertheless, the church management part of me prevailed and I stuck by my half tithe of

5 percent.

I lived in this austere way for several years. However, after I married, things began to change. Slowly Leslie and I began to accumulate material things, a dining room table and chairs, a recovered a couch, dishes, and a small lawn mower. Over time we had three children and they needed beds and clothing and food. We bought a TV. Computers came along. When I found out they could correct my spelling, I sank into a depression and I explained to Leslie that only buying a computer could cure me. Later I felt the need for a video camera to record the children's childhoods. We needed a historic record, I reasoned, in case one of them grew up to be president. And VCR's came along. And Compact Disk players. I found I could get a high from playing with gadgets.

Money, and the material positions I can buy with it, can be like a drug, giving me temporary euphoric highs that fade with time. If I don't watch myself, I can become like the parents in the D.H. Lawrence story "The Rocking-Horse Winner," Feeling that there must be more money.

I need religion and the support of a religious community to resist the temptation to let the drug of money and material gadgets become the focus of my life. I need a religious community to remind me that money and possessions are not the source of happiness, or well-being or meaning in life. Religion reminds me: The positive feeling that sustains me day by day and gives my life satisfaction and deep-rooted meaning, does not come from money or from buying things or owning things. Meaning comes from my relationship with works of art such music. Meaning comes from healthy relationships with nature and the earth. Meaning comes from healthy relationships with other people.

A man named Andrew Oswald, an economist at Warwick University near Coventry in Britain has studied this. He has statistical evidence that, after certain point, money is not the road to happiness in life.⁽¹⁾

Professor Oswald says that for poor countries or poor people, greater income does produce significant and lasting gains in happiness. However, after our needs for food, clothing and shelter are met, there is only a small positive correlation between money and happiness. The wealthy are only a little happier than others. In Western industrial nations, prosperity has been rising for a long time without a related increase in happiness.

For example, American living standards have risen enormously in the last few years. However, in surveys over the years, when researchers ask Americans about happiness levels -- very happy, pretty happy, or not too happy -- they don't show much change.

Another economist, Michael Cox has compared living standards in 1970 with those in 1990.⁽²⁾

In 1970, 34 percent of new homes in the United States had central heat and air conditioning. In 1990, 76 percent of new homes had central heat and air conditioning.

In 1970, 7 percent of homes lacked complete plumbing. In 1990, only 1 percent lack complete plumbing.

In 1970, five million homes had cable TV. In 1990, fifty-five million homes had cable TV.

In 1970, no homes had videocassette recorders. In 1990, sixty-seven million households had videocassette recorders.

In 1970, less than 1 percent of American homes had a microwave oven. In 1990, 79 percent had a microwave.

In 1970, less than 100,000 people used computers. In 1990, 75.9 million people were using computers.

In 1970, workers got an average of 15.5 paid vacation days and holidays. In 1990, workers got an average of 22.5 paid vacation days and holidays.

In 1970, 12.7 million people attended performances of symphonies and orchestras. In 1990, 43.6 million people attended such performances.

With all these material improvements in our lives, people should be much happier. However, in 1990 the same number of Americans said they were "very happy" as said they were very happy in a 1972 study. In spite of all the new ways we have to keep ourselves comfortable and amuse

ourselves, our happiness is the same as it was in 1972.⁽³⁾

Similarly, reported levels of "satisfaction with life" in Western Europe are only slightly higher than they were twenty years ago. Two countries, Belgium and Ireland, showed a drop satisfaction with life compared with twenty years ago.

Yet another sign of the limits of money is that studies show that job satisfaction in the United States and Britain has not increased in the past quarter century, despite higher pay.

What does promote happiness? According to the studies of Professor Andrew Oswald, church attendance promotes happiness. People who go to church are more likely to say that they are very happy. Church members are more likely to say that they have satisfaction with life.

A second favorable factor is marriage. People who are married are more like to report that they are happy. A third factor is employment. People who have work are more likely to say that they find their life meaningful. However, the amount of money people make at work is not related to their feelings of happiness.

Jacob Needleman a professor at San Francisco State University has studied people who suddenly receive a great deal of money. He writes that "if you are a worrier when you are poor, you will be a worrier when you are rich." Having money does not change how we feel inside. If we are anxious without money, we are going to be anxious with money. Needleman says:

People who win the lottery can be driven crazy. On the other hand, I do know of people who have stayed quite stable through it. Often they are people who have strong ethical and religious lives. They have a sense that there is something more important then money.⁽⁴⁾

I am involved in religion because I need this reminder frequently. Here I remind myself what gives meaning to life: relationships with our family members, the grandeur of nature, the beauty of music, poetry and art, the hugs and handshakes exchanged between friends as they greet each other in church. These give meaning to my life. They point to a purpose and a unity that underlies existence, a unity that I call God.

So I still give 5 percent of my income before taxes to the church. In return I receive a feeling of well-being. In community with other imperfect, but caring people I have a positive feeling that is

renewed day by day. Like the people in the studies, the church renews me and gives my life satisfaction and deep-rooted meaning.

I invite you to go home this week and think about your life and about your financial life in relationship what gives your life meaning. I don't want anyone to give to this church out of fear or guilt. I hope you will give out of a sense that your religious life, your participation and commitment to this religious community is a source of meaning to you.

1. Oswald, Andrew, "Happiness and Economic Performance," The Economic Journal, Blackwell Publishers, November, 1997, pp. 1815-1831.

2. Michael Cox is the economic adviser to the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. He handed out a sheet containing this data at a conference of the National Association of Business Economists in Boston. The data was reported in the Sept, 13,1996, Christian Science Monitor.

3. Oswald, "Happiness and Economic Performance."

4. Needleman, Jacob, interviewed in Fast Company.

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