Money as Spiritual Exchange

Money-as a medium of meaningful exchange-becomes a force for liberation and empowerment. In a meaningful exchange, both parties give and both parties receive. In this way money becomes part of a spiritual exchange in which people encounter each other and their own deepest selves.  

From Alchemists at Work: God, Money and the Common Good by Katharine Rhodes Henderson 

Money as a meaningful exchange. Money as a statement of who you are on the inside. Money as a reflection. Money as a Spiritual exchange. Someone wake me, am I dreaming?

When has money ever been anything other than a power exchange? I have never known it to be anything else. In my life, money was a statement of power, control, domination, worth and value. It was the means of separation: who belonged and who did not, who counted and mattered and who did not and who was a winner and who was a loser. 

Today as I went to teach on emotional health and wellness at a very rich private school. I paused before entering and reminded myself, I have value-in the face of all that wealth. I saw all the teenagers driving cars that I have never even thought to own and I could feel myself slipping. Slipping into what? Where did I go?

Judgment. Judging whether they would listen to me as I spoke. Judging whether I could articulate the issues intelligently enough for them to feel challenged in light of the fact that they are challenged -constantly-by their ultra educated parents who need them to walk in their image and likeness. 

Wondering. Who would I be if I was born into wealth? I grew up in the face of a split reality-on one hand , growing up poor and on the other hand having a parent who had access to resources, but withheld them out of fear of 'spoiling' us. He had a theology that giving too much, killed work ethic, not realizing that other things are lost through withholding.  

Like it or not, many of us translate wealth into love-sharing or withholding it and if money exchanges are an transactional articulation of our inner spiritual lives, then I have been living in spiritual poverty for a long, long time. 

I could feel my anxiety as I approached the school. As I entered the building, a gang of fire departments came along with an ambulance. Later, I learned that one girl had fainted. I thought-what value you must have to have -no less than 3 trucks come for you. What would have come if a girl had fainted in east oakland? 

And as I sat and talked with them, many already with private therapists-at 15 and hearing their pain, their stories and realizing that they are marginalized on a whole other level. They have monetary exchanges with their parents that have their own power dynamics. 

When I have had moments of pure generosity, where people have shared out of the intention of love articulating that they were simply engaging in an equal energy exchange, I am most humbled. I haven't always known how to wrap myself around it, maintain my center in the face of it or know how to remain grounded, but I am clear that I need my encounters to be deep, my transactions authentic and money to be a symbolic statement of sharing love, because Spirit is in all.