by Barbara Erakko Taylor

I have funny childhood memories about money. In one, my best girlfriend and I would periodically go to the local laundromat and play the coin-changer machine. If we kept on plugging in quarters, eventually we got an extra dime.

Even younger, I remember trailing behind my sister on a "money hunt." On this day, she suggested we go look in the nearby park. Soon, she was gleefully finding quarters and dimes, one after another--a steady stream of monetary manna. I trailed behind despondently. "I'm not finding anything," I said in tears. Moments later, I too found a dime and then a quarter. My luck had turned.

I raced home to tell Mom about our wonderful fortune. "Mom," I said. "Look at all the dimes and quarters I got! We went money hunting!" Then Sandra walked in. Mom said, in that unmistakable, deadpan parent voice, "Put the lunch money back, Sandra." And there went my wealth.

Those are my fond memories. But there are sad ones, too--when I didn't have enough, when I couldn't get what I needed, and even, ironically, when I felt I had too much--and worried about those less fortunate.

Being poor--with a dream--was fun. I remember that going grocery shopping with virtually no money was an adventure. I had to choose between saran wrap or aluminum foil because I couldn't afford both. But I had a dream. I was writing my first book. However, I found that being poor in an oppressed situation had the opposite effect. I felt sacred energy being sucked out of me. I felt like a barren woman. I felt poor.

So when Shalem offered the program Spirituality and Money, I knew I had enough money baggage to come, and on an evening in October, I found myself with four co-leaders and seven other participants--ready to listen and share.

It was my first intimate experience of Shalem, and I loved the fact that our "leaders" refused to be leaders. Among themselves, as fundraisers and money managers, they used money every day, both vocationally and personally. Moreover, it was within a Shalem context, for all of them had organizational associations with the Shalem program and ministry. It was perhaps inevitable that they would want to explore the spirituality of money--if indeed there was any. And, not having the answers, they naturally thought of us--other sojourners on the economically-paved road through a God-centered yet earth-bound life.

I was amazed, and grateful, that we often had similar--very similar--concerns. It seemed that both ends of the money spectrum (extreme poverty or unexpected wealth) produced questions of "Why me?" Some of us also struggled with our inability to trust God to provide. There was a part of us that wanted to be generous--to give what we possessed ... but with a savings account nearby earning interest.

Each week we reflected on a different aspect of money--our work, our sense of faithfulness to God, our concept of play and relaxation, our global responsibility. For me, money issues did not "fall into place," with all my questions solved and resolved. Actually, in one sense, nothing happened. But, in another sense, great things happened.

Nothing happened in the sense that if I wanted all my worries, problems and concerns about money to go away, they didn't. I trod across well-worn ground, familiar anxieties, with not-too-altruistic clay feet. But--and this is the great thing--I did not walk alone across the sometimes frightening monetary landscape but together with others whom I came to enjoy and respect.

Have I completed my spiritual negotiations with money? No. But the Shalem program stirred something deep inside me very gently, and I want to stay with it and listen.

Near the end of my Shalem experience, a friend told me about the book, Your Money or Your Life, by Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin. Intrigued by her enthusiasm, I bought the book. First, I was asked to re-compute my real hourly wage, deducting all of the expenses incurred to have that job (the wardrobe, the car, the commuting expenses, the office lunches). A person making $11/hour may actually make only $6. That equals one hour of our non-refundable, non-usable, finite life energy. Having a true cost of our hourly labor, we can then compute how many real hours of life energy each purchase costs. Dinner out might tally up to four life energy hours. Was it worth it?

I began to look at my book purchases. I love books--the smell of them, the feel of them, the information they contain. I also have stacks of unread books. Now, when I see an interesting title, I compute the number of life energy hours to buy it plus the number of life energy hours it will take to read it. I read really s l o w w l y. My enthusiasm has been tempered, my consciousness awakened.

The authors say there is no blame, no shame for how we have lived, and we do not need to look at life like a budget. It is more a listening inward to the choices we make with a financial tuning fork. The tuning fork has three tonal qualities: Does this purchase fulfill me? Is it in alignment with my values? How would this look if I were working for the well-being of the whole world?

If it rings true on all three tones, it will resonate with the deepest sense of our graced and spiritual self. I suspect that rarely happens. But, like living out our faith, it gives us a way to grow into becoming fully human, fully alive.

The end of the Shalem program was, for me, a new beginning. How comforted I am not to be alone in my confusion about money and spirituality. I learned, quite poignantly, often humorously, and always in a caring way, that money is a deep-rooted concern for all of us--from our first allowance to our last income tax.

And God, the manna master of money, probably gives us just the right menu to feed fully on God's love and nurture that love in others.

Barbara, a writer who recently published Silence: Making the Journey to Inner Quiet (Innisfree Press), has led a contemplative life style for nearly twenty years.