Small Gifts - Good Stewards

Good Stewardship! Aren’t we always guessing, hoping, wondering if we are being good stewards, following God’s mandate, yet never really knowing for sure? One thing became very true for me: a good steward treats all creation respectfully. Yes, even a penny!

Remember how the woman in Jesus’ parable, searches for her lost coin? Her search wasn’t for a wad of bills, a cache of jewels, or a boxed treasure of stored gold. Her search is for one single coin. She pulls out a broom, sweeps the house thoroughly. She lights a lamp, (oil costs!) to help her find her missing coin. When she finds it. Voila! She grabs the phone, now energized by her find, and calls her neighbors: “Hooray! I finally found my penny!”

What’s the lesson here? One biblical commentator offered: “The looking for that penny and the celebration may have cost her as much as the coin itself. But to her, it was worth it” It’s curious how yes, even a penny can mean so much. What is Jesus trying to tell us?
Here’s a modern twist on a penny that I caught on the internet. Horrified to see a very wealthy man on his walk with her picking up, more than once, a copper coin, Marion spoke up. “How can you take time to stoop for a simple penny.” Nonplused, the rich guy, took his time to look into her question and then turned to search her puzzled eyes:

“Dear woman, all my gifts have come from God. I want God to know that I really believe what it says on this penny: “In God I trust”.

Worldly wisdom would have the biblical poor woman too poor to make a difference and the rich man too rich to pay attention. I think Jesus honored both. Regardless of our preconceived ideas of either wealth or poverty, aren’t we all, as good stewards, enjoined to care and be grateful for the smallest of God’s gifts? Think about it.

Welcoming Wealth with a Goodbye

My heart holds deep reverence for an elderly man, an artist poet, Harry Wiseman, who was recently interviewed on National Public Radio’s Arts Connection. He confided that, paradoxically, his wealth emerged when he could let things go. “Worrying about my possessions just seems to make me feel poor.” he offered his listening audience. “It’s how to hold onto them, how to lock them up safely, a million how’s to keep them. But when I give away some tool of mine, or even a chair that I designed, I feel richer. Nothing owns me. I’m at peace.”

Happiness Does Not Consist in “How Much”

“If you believe strongly enough in yourself and God, and don’t spend all your energies on making, questing, or worrying about money, you will get what you need when you need it.” spoke John’s mother, Josepha. And, sure enough, despite an alcoholic husband, five children to feed, the family never went hungry. They found woods where natural foods offered themselves to the family, fresh and nourishing. Josepha never allowed money or the lack of it to determine her course, her feelings, her faith. “I live each day fully. Happiness is never dependent on how much I have, but what I do with what the little I have been given.”

Josepha discovered her inner wealth “from nature walks, flower gardens, and the silence of the woods. I found refuge in books, treasures in the public library brought the outside world into my dreary one.”

Years later, and now happily married to a man of modest means, Josepha exclaims: “My new husband and I often laugh at how rich we feel.”
(Adapted from Wisdom Women in the best seller, Money as Sacrament.)

Nine Things I Want My Neighbors to Know

1) Honor the money as gift. The amount is secondary. Know that it comes as gift. When you are conscious of this, your soul is alive in peace and contentment.

2) Shift your position from ego satisfaction to spirit satisfaction. Spirit doesn’t seek control, power, or symbols of wealth. It seeks Other.

3) Do what you love doing. Try never just to do it for the money!

4) The truth is always wanting to come up. By being spiritually aware, you will discover more of what enriches your soul. And then, like they say, it will set you free.

5) Yes, you can give without loving but you can’t love without giving.

6) We are not physical beings seeking some spiritual experience. We are already truly spiritual beings who happen to inhabit a physical dimension.

7) Celebrate the energy that comes from hearing and believing in God’s call to you

8) Know that when you render to Caesar the things that are his, you render to God everything since it all belongs to Him.

9) Care for yourself. Theilhard de Chardin advises that: “To the degree that I care for myself might be the degree in which I care for another. If there isn’t much love for the me inside, I diminish my care for those outside of me

Backyard Potting Soil

One day, Jim saved me from my backyard soil. He’d made a trip to Green Gardens Nursery, came home and breezily announced: “Honey, I bought some potting soil.”

I was furious. Why spend money on something we already had. I pointed out that our backyard consisted of an acre of potting soil. Of course, I didn’t mention an aching back, dirty fingernails, or a possible Florida heat stroke.

After breakfast, the next day, as I pulled out my purse for a day’s shopping. it finally hit me! One purpose of money is to save time and labor. Unlike some unfortunate neighbors, I wasn’t exactly called by God to dig in the dirt. Saving dollars on soil stemmed from some old-brain thinking, a time zone belonging to my parents or who knows, perhaps to some long-forgotten rural farmer living in me still wanting to wrestle with soil.

Now, thanks to my husband, I’m free to lay a few extra bills on a nursery counter for a luxury called potting soil. What will be next?” Jim and I both laugh over the switch. “Look, honey, clean fingernails!”

Generosity As Bridge to God

Sophy Owens’ mother, a longtime and talented bookkeeper, had one outstanding parent quality. She never failed to make sure her daughter had extra money anytime she was leaving the house. From the time Sophy was a child, just walking to the library or to the drugstore in busy upper Manhattan, or later, off to some high school event, this single-again mom forever asked: “Honey, have you got enough money with you?” And before Sophy could respond, there was a small wad of green bills shoved into her hand.

According to Sophy, “mom could be impossibly generous, bestowing gifts wherever she felt the urge. And always with that smile. Never extravagant because we had only modest means, just giving what her heart could give. Sophy’s name for mom? “God’s Great Distributor”

“Once when my cousin came to stay, mom went after all the change in the cookie jar for that leg of lamb she’d been eyeing at the butcher’s. It would be an afternoon of culinary effort. Before it was over, like Babette’s feast, magic appeared from nowhere. We all toasted Sophy for that gourmet celebration.”

Sophy discovered these guiding thoughts in her mother’s diary after she passed on: God sees a reflection of himself when we practice generosity toward others. This kind of generosity, perhaps given through church contributions or directly to a child becomes a glorious bridge between ourselves and God. Something so honest and simple as disposing of bills into my daughter’s wallet links me to my Creator.

Who do You Trust?

Back in the 18th Century, Benjamin Franklin, American patriot was appointed to design our paper money. With consciousness of the God living in him, he made sure that paper included the inscription, In God We Trust. He hoped that in seeing that inscription every time we pulled our money out, we’d value its worth and its Source.

Coming from his Colonial British Pound, this must have seemed a revolutionary idea indeed. God and money had never been connected before. But he also knew from his experience in the fast paced Colonial life, how money could be immorally used. That inscription was to remind us to hold money as sacred, pass it on to others, never allow dishonesty to diminish the sanctity of our exchange.

Do you and I still notice that inscription? Do we allow our identity with God to connect to the money. Aren’t we all more inclined to substitute: “in business we trust,” or “in government we trust,” or “ even in church .....? So who do we really trust?