Dear reader,
I received this email from a woman who gave me permission to share parts of it. Since I'm still speaking and writing about money issues, I felt her words might encourage you, my reader, to order Money As Sacrament. Like S., I know you won't be sorry.
This is, in part, what S.had to say:
"I want to thank you for writing Money As Sacrament. It was an answer to my prayer. I have been on a spiritual path for many years, probably all my life, although the early years too, in the form of religion - Lutheran and Pentecostal - because my Dad was and now is a retired minister. .... (then)there was a drastic transformation from religion to spirituality which stated in 1990 and now, I feel closer to God than ever before.
... Though unique circumstances, this amazing book became a major turning point of my journey. I am one of six kids and having a minister father and being born in a third world country like Guyana, money was scarce. We grew up in Canada, but still, I felt like Dad was protecting us from the 'evil' of money. ....
I firmly believe God wanted me to change the way I saw and thought of money, stuff I didn't even know I had in me. ... Your book brought all of this to the surface and I was forced to look at myself and tell my own money story, which I did in my journal.
.... So Adele, thank you so much for this book. I will always cherish this time in my life when the transformation was made inside of me. ..... my mantra is now 'money is my friend, and my friend will always be faithful to me.' I own money. Money doesn't own me. I am not scared to be rich anymore and I do not have to make excuses for my wealth. This is good.
With eternal thanks and gratitude,
S.M.
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Thursday, August 14, 2008
Hatching Lifetimes of Resentments
Women have been hatching lifetimes of bottled up resentments and money quandaries. At money gatherings, I hear their cries with compassion and sadness. “I hate dealing with money. I just don’t fit with it.” One even thought it sinful to want to be rich. Sinful? A single mother was so depressed about a particular money loss that she couldn’t get out of bed for a week.
Okay, so historically, men did the business, woman did the dishes. Yet if we look closely, I make no exaggeration, we women have been money specialists all along. Haven’t we handled thousands of family dollars over the years Haven’t we written checks, received salaries, cashed the checks or deposited them. Haven’t we handed lunch money to our children, cash to our spouses and aging parents. Often, aren’t we’re the ones who pay the taxes, collect unemployment, and most always, the ones to figure out how to squeeze more money from tiny piggy banks. We are far more educated about money than we express.
So dear ladies, not only do we do dishes, we do finances. Not only do we fit in this society but perhaps, we run it. Take heart.
Okay, so historically, men did the business, woman did the dishes. Yet if we look closely, I make no exaggeration, we women have been money specialists all along. Haven’t we handled thousands of family dollars over the years Haven’t we written checks, received salaries, cashed the checks or deposited them. Haven’t we handed lunch money to our children, cash to our spouses and aging parents. Often, aren’t we’re the ones who pay the taxes, collect unemployment, and most always, the ones to figure out how to squeeze more money from tiny piggy banks. We are far more educated about money than we express.
So dear ladies, not only do we do dishes, we do finances. Not only do we fit in this society but perhaps, we run it. Take heart.
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
It's All in the Bread
Dropping a piece of bread on the floor raised my young mother’s eyebrows. “Kiss it! she’d say. No matter the kind of bread, no matter the dust on the floor, bread was holy! If we dropped it, we kissed it. We not only kissed it, we touched it to our forehead.
An Arabic custom, bread was not considered ordinary food. Bread was representative of a man’s labor and basic sustenance. Bread was divine a symbol for God, the real nutrient of life. “You must honor bread with complete respect,” Mom would direct.
Mom was the faithful bread baker back in the forties, the kind of bread that most of us now call “Pita Bread.” Although I was only seven, I still see it all: the mixing, the kneading, the baking. Blend flour with water, create the right dough consistency, pull and separate the spongy stuff into small balls, roll each into tiny mounds on the dining room table. “Now, they have to sleep.”
In the Florida heat, the mounds swelled under the additional warmth of an old Army blanket. “It’s like pregnancy. We have to wait until it’s time.” Every few hours, mom escaped clerking in our Orlando 7-11 type grocery store on highway 17-92 to climb upstairs and peek under the blanket at her growing babies until she’d finally smile: “They’re ready”.
Now, she’d pull away the blanket, flatten each of them into circles, turning them like pizza dough. And yes again, a couple of rounds of sleep time until they finally made their way into a 500 degree oven. Sweat like a mini waterfall dripped from her face as she leaned down before the magic oven to pull out each browned loaf with her flat wooden shovel and toss it into a pile on the kitchen table. (I still have that dear flat wooden shovel) We stood by wanting to grab that first warm loaf, to pour real butter all over it and go at savoring the joy.
“Let’s give thanks.” Mama never forgot. Like a yeasting, a waiting, a solemn gathering, we circled for a ritual of thanksgiving. Though panting and sweating, mom retained enough saintly strength to remind us of bread’s deeper force. “If you drop a piece, make sure you kiss it.”
There is a custom in the Catholic Ritual that echos mom’s teaching. If when the priest is giving communion, the holy bread falls to the floor, the priest must pick it up and kiss the sacred bread as well. My mother knew well her ritual, and perhaps under the influence of memory, mom’s practice stemmed from her religion, a Greek Orthodox ritual.
Now, forty years later, I drop a piece of bread, I can’t help myself: I instinctively kiss it and touch it to my forehead and feel an automatic connection to my adored mother. But even more, I instinctively feel linked to something holy.
An Arabic custom, bread was not considered ordinary food. Bread was representative of a man’s labor and basic sustenance. Bread was divine a symbol for God, the real nutrient of life. “You must honor bread with complete respect,” Mom would direct.
Mom was the faithful bread baker back in the forties, the kind of bread that most of us now call “Pita Bread.” Although I was only seven, I still see it all: the mixing, the kneading, the baking. Blend flour with water, create the right dough consistency, pull and separate the spongy stuff into small balls, roll each into tiny mounds on the dining room table. “Now, they have to sleep.”
In the Florida heat, the mounds swelled under the additional warmth of an old Army blanket. “It’s like pregnancy. We have to wait until it’s time.” Every few hours, mom escaped clerking in our Orlando 7-11 type grocery store on highway 17-92 to climb upstairs and peek under the blanket at her growing babies until she’d finally smile: “They’re ready”.
Now, she’d pull away the blanket, flatten each of them into circles, turning them like pizza dough. And yes again, a couple of rounds of sleep time until they finally made their way into a 500 degree oven. Sweat like a mini waterfall dripped from her face as she leaned down before the magic oven to pull out each browned loaf with her flat wooden shovel and toss it into a pile on the kitchen table. (I still have that dear flat wooden shovel) We stood by wanting to grab that first warm loaf, to pour real butter all over it and go at savoring the joy.
“Let’s give thanks.” Mama never forgot. Like a yeasting, a waiting, a solemn gathering, we circled for a ritual of thanksgiving. Though panting and sweating, mom retained enough saintly strength to remind us of bread’s deeper force. “If you drop a piece, make sure you kiss it.”
There is a custom in the Catholic Ritual that echos mom’s teaching. If when the priest is giving communion, the holy bread falls to the floor, the priest must pick it up and kiss the sacred bread as well. My mother knew well her ritual, and perhaps under the influence of memory, mom’s practice stemmed from her religion, a Greek Orthodox ritual.
Now, forty years later, I drop a piece of bread, I can’t help myself: I instinctively kiss it and touch it to my forehead and feel an automatic connection to my adored mother. But even more, I instinctively feel linked to something holy.
Saturday, August 02, 2008
Garden Epiphanies
Take your money fears to your garden where all nature addresses that fear. Notice how, for example, when you prune a plant, at some point, it comes back fuller than ever. Pruning is difficult. I hate to prune. It feels as if I'm hurting my baby, but that hurt turns to fulness. Unexpected joyful fullness.
Another of nature's examples for your money fear: note how long your orchid is bare and you wonder, maddeningly, if you'll ever see its magnificence. One day, Voila! a blossoming Vanda, purple and cream with vibrating lines of blood red opens to your eyes. You scratch your head. What did I do? You didn't do anything except wait. It was your patience. All growth appears in the fullness of its own time,
Stand open to your money fear. Water it down with prayer, vision your success, rich and bright and fertile. Give gratitude for all of it. Watch all your fear turn to joy.
Another of nature's examples for your money fear: note how long your orchid is bare and you wonder, maddeningly, if you'll ever see its magnificence. One day, Voila! a blossoming Vanda, purple and cream with vibrating lines of blood red opens to your eyes. You scratch your head. What did I do? You didn't do anything except wait. It was your patience. All growth appears in the fullness of its own time,
Stand open to your money fear. Water it down with prayer, vision your success, rich and bright and fertile. Give gratitude for all of it. Watch all your fear turn to joy.
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