The Man Of Many Cares

I grew up in what I would say was a more or less upper-middle class family, though we didn't come from money. My grandfather on my dad's side worked at the Philadelphia Navy Yard, and my grandfather on my mom's side was a chemistry professor (both grandmothers were homemakers). All passed away either before I was born or not long after.

My parents were teachers, and we learned to be frugal from a young age by way of my dad's example. We were never in want, never really worried about how to pay bills and things. We didn't go out to eat often, but when we did the joke in the family was "water only." We got our clothes from thrift stores. We were taught that money=security, and my father had little sayings he would coin and pass down to us in the way of worldly wisdom like "accidents don't have to happen," and "you can never have enough of two things: money and firewood."

I started working at age twelve delivering newspapers and never stopped working. I always had a job. Aside from the newspaper route, I worked in a propane factory, a greenhouse, I edited blueprints at an architectural firm, filed, serviced swimming pools, portaged canoes, waited tables, was a dishwasher, bar-back, valet, bike courier, case worker, barista, transcript evaluator...you get the idea. I always felt good working, though I never made a whole lot of money or had a "good job," a bit of a black sheep in the family in that way. But my expenses were minimal and I learned to adapt my lifestyle and habits to accommodate my modest income.

I'm not ignorant to the issue of privilege. Everything my father did, he did for us--my mom, and my brothers and I--and with us in my mind. I'm grateful for that. Like the father in the story of the prodigal son, "everything I have is yours" was his attitude. This did not extend to people outside the family. I suppose it was a general belief that people who were less well off had the government to rely on, or that he paid taxes that somehow helped in some indirect way. In any case, we didn't really learn those things growing up, but we did learn about things like the amazing power of compound interest and that money equals options. When you don't have money, you don't have options. And that's not a good thing.

When I moved to the inner city after college to run a house of hospitality for homeless men with drug and alcohol addictions and minister to men in prison half-time, I was living off the money I had saved from working, since I had no source of income. We lived a block from one of the most notorious drug corners in Harrisburg (13th & Derry) known for its violence and prostitution. Gunshots in the night were a regular occurrence. I had a manual 1988 Celica with 220,000 miles and no AC that someone gave me, shuttling guys to NA and AA meetings in it and taking the neighborhood kids to camp and the pool. I ate lunch every day in the soup kitchen and whatever food was donated to us for breakfast and dinner. I had very few material needs and was content with what little I had.

My dad had come out to visit at one point while I was there. He was always supportive of everything I ever did, but we got into some discussions about money, wealth, the poor, the Bible, and the Christian life. I was a zealous convert of three years trying to explain things without marginalizing him or sounding judgey (I was probably doing a bad job), wanting him to see that there was more to life than wealth and security, and he for his part was trying his best to respect my choices and keep from leveling charges of idealism against me, figuring I would wake up soon enough to "the way things really are." I was well aware that I was a 22 year old kid from the suburbs and that this was voluntary poverty, not destitution or grinding poverty that I was born into with little hope of escaping from. I could leave at any time. And when scandal and leadership struggles shook our particular Catholic Worker community after my first year, I did just that.

As the years went on, I maintained a good relationship with my father, looking to him for worldly and financial advice when I sorely needed it. He planned well, had good luck with his health and did not experience any major catastrophes, and so was able to retire somewhat early. I was a bit of a late bloomer when it came to getting established in the world and in a job, since for ten years I thought I was going to be a monk and that it didn't matter all that much what I did in terms of career; I had spent all my time and energy and effort at trying to live the beatitudes and had essentially handicapped myself in the world while my brothers went on to get good high paying jobs and established themselves in their careers. My dad was enjoying life; he had planned well, focused, and now could sit back and enjoy the well deserved fruits of financial discipline; essentially well-off by most accounts, even though he still wore sweatpants with holes in the knees.

As I read more and more scripture over the years, though, there was a story that bothered me. It appears in Luke 12:16-21, and it goes like this:

“The land of a rich man was very productive. And he began reasoning to himself, saying, ‘What shall I do, since I have no place to store my crops?’ Then he said, ‘This is what I will do: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years to come; take your ease, eat, drink and be merry.”’ But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your soul is required of you; and now who will own what you have prepared?’ So is the man who stores up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.”

I tried not to see my dad as the man in the story. But I was having trouble. It wasn't judgment, but a sense of worry based on what I knew. The parallels were unsettling--a mistaken sense of security ("many years to come"), investment vehicles ("bigger barns"), a focus on the here and now in the world ("eat, drink, and be merry") and if I was brutally honest, a charity that we never saw demonstrated in real life towards those in need ("treasure for himself"). Was I judging him? Being too critical? Naive and idealistic? Or was he in danger of the same fate? And how do you save a rich man, ultimately, from that terrible sentence?

I did not know how the world worked all that well, but I knew what the scriptures said. There was Lazarus and the rich man; there was the rich young ruler that went away sad, unable to follow Jesus in perfection; there were the goats separated from the sheep, the ones who did not give Christ food to eat, water to drink, clothes to wear, a place to sleep, a visit in time of need. There was the camel and the eye of the needle. There was the manna in the desert that rotted when the Israelites attempted to store it up. There was the Sermon on the Mount to those rich who have have already received their consolation. There was the Gospel seed that fell among thorns--the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things that come in and choke the word, making it unfruitful.  There was warning after warning from the saints, and common sense spiritual wisdom like the that from the holy fool St. Francis of Assisi: "Riches prick us with a thousand troubles in getting them, as many cares in preserving them, and yet more anxiety in spending them, and with grief in losing them."

I struggled with this for many years, as my father's and my trajectories--the choices we have made the set the course of our lives as adults--diverged seemingly farther and father apart. In grad school, perhaps as way to reconcile my unease with my relationship to wealth (and by extension, my father's), I did one of my term papers on the topic. I attempted to find out just what constituted, what made one considered to be "rich" and as a result, at a handicap in the spiritual realm. Did having two houses make one wealthy? Two pairs of shoes? Eating more than two meals a day? The paper and presentation were, as they say in the scientific community, "inconclusive." I simply could not say or point to what made one person wealthy by way of definition; it was simply too relative. In drawing up indictments, perhaps I had implicated myself! After all, I was never without food, running water, clothing, healthcare, shelter. I had more than I needed, and probably held on to and shielded what I did have from others less fortunate. Was I, in fact, the rich man? And if so, how could I be saved, since it is, quite literally, "impossible." (Mt 19:24) Impossible, that is, with men. But with God, all things are possible.

The older I get the more I see the wisdom in and meditate on the scripture in Proverbs, settling on it as my mantra of concession to reconcile this conundrum as to how I want to live in the world, that says,

"Keep deception and lies far from me, 

Give me neither poverty nor riches; 

Feed me with the food that is my portion, 

That I not be full and deny You and say, “Who is the Lord?” 

Or that I not be in want and steal, 

And profane the name of my God." 

(Prov 30:8-9)

I have had to learn generosity and almsgiving on my own, or rather, by way of grace, since I was not raised with this example. I have had to learn (and it is very difficult) how to trust the Lord with our finances, balancing being prudent with trusting in Providence for "our daily bread." I have had to learn detachment--to trade my treasure from a place where moth and rust threaten to destroy it and thieves may steal it, in exchange for treasure in heaven, the only place it is truly secure. I have had to learn how to not ignore those in need, those covered in sores which are licked by dogs, just outside my door who would be content with the crusts from my kid's sandwiches I pitch in the garbage can underneath our granite countertops. Truly, truly--it is impossible for us to be saved without grace, without God.

I love my dad, am so grateful for him, and pray for him often. But the more my wife and I approach that point of material and spiritual equilibrium as a family--the stasis which offers peace in exchange for worry and anxiety, contentment in lieu of striving and covetousness, and trust in lieu of doubt that we will be provided for--the more we see the splendor of those lilies arrayed in natural beauty, the loftiness of those birds endowed with immeasurable security making their nests in the trees. The more we orient our heart to the Lord and strive to follow His commands in every aspect of our lives, the more the Chinese finger trap of wealth and earthly security begins to loosen. The more we give away, the more we are blessed. The less we have, the less we have to lose.  When you put "first things first," everything else seems to fall into place, at least from what I've seen so far. 

The peace Christ gives is not the peace the world gives (Jn 14:27). And so depending on what foundation we build our house on--security in this life or in anticipation of the next; wealth in the things of God or the things of the world; charity to neighbor or a building bigger barns to hold our grain--our peace may find itself in relation to our respective state. For Christ says to us in full disclosure, "Woe to you who are rich, for you are receiving your comfort in full. Woe to you who are well-fed now, for you shall be hungry. Woe to you who laugh now, for you shall mourn and weep" (Lk 6:24-25). And that where we put our heart is where our treasure may be found (Mt 6:21). The closer we come to our death, the more somber, and the more hollow those things that felt so comforting and the source of earthly security--investment accounts, 401k's, vacation homes--are.

But the man who has peace at the hour of his death, who is prepared to meet his God and stand before the throne despite having a handful of bills to pass on to his children? Suffice it to say, he dies a wealthy man indeed.