Last weekend my daughter, her mother and I finished the tedious process of reporting our financial life to the colleges my daughter applied to last month.  This meant getting my taxes done at the earliest possible moment (a first in my life!).  I don't know why it is that each year when I face the annual task of tax filing and in the case of this year the added process of financial aid reporting, that I feel so anxious.  Part of the process I think stems from a time in my life when I didn't have the means to make up for any mistakes I may have made in projecting my tax burden and paying on a quarterly basis, so I always entered the process at the end of the tax year a bit weary.  The other part, is that there is attached to this process a form of self-examination which involves a sense of worthiness and judgement, when I finally look at what I have earned and spent and face the inevitable reality each year that despite having earned a reputable income, I always feel I'm living on the edge of something and that while I dream of giving so much of my resources to the world I love, that it never seems like enough.  I guilt myself into feeling like I haven't accomplished enough, earned enough, saved enough, given enough. . . you get the picture.  Oh the tax refund helps, don't get me wrong, but it never seems like it's enough and it is spent all too quickly.

 

I think it is easy to get stuck in a "not enough" frame of mind and being.  The trick, I am learning is to recognize that this frame is founded on a phantom, phantom wealth to be exact.  I refer here to the musings of David Korten in a article from Tikkun Magazine.

 

And what is money? Most money in circulation isn't even represented by a number on a piece of paper. It is an electronic trace in a computer file. Aside from the metal in coins, what we call money has no meaning or existence outside the human mind. It has value only because, by social convention, we agree to accept it in return for things of real value: our labor, knowledge, and natural resources.

Most money is an accounting chit created from nothing with a simple bookkeeping entry when a bank issues a loan.

When you take out a loan from a bank, the bank opens an account in your name and enters the amount of the loan. That becomes a liability on the bank's accounts, offset by the corresponding asset of your promise to repay with interest. With two simple accounting entries, money magically appears from nowhere. That simple process makes it possible for the institutions of mammon-the institutions of Wall Street and its global counterparts-to rule the world. As the economist John Kenneth Galbraith once famously observed, the process is "so simple it repels the mind."

Money, consequently, can be defined as phantom wealth. It has no substance or intrinsic value, particularly when it is created from nothing and is not used for the creation of anything of corresponding value.

 

My father pointed to this truth when he said a good life is lived in such a way that when it is over the world is bereft at the loss of that life.  In other words, relationships, communions that serve something larger than ourselves are an ultimate goal.  This is our true legacy, when we leave the world a better place than we found it.  When we desire and work for a larger peace, a truer justice, a deeper love, we invest our lives with high significance.  I think this is why the Talmud of the Jewish tradition notes that to live a good life one has only to plant a tree, write a book or have a child.  I also believe this is why we belong to and support this community of faith.

        

The reality of this truth came alive in me again as I worked with my daughter to fill out financial aid paperwork.  It had nothing to do with the numbers on the screen and everything to do with the dream in her eyes, the excitement in her voice, the promise of a future yet to unfold.  In that moment, and in all the moments I remember this experience, I am the wealthiest I will ever be. And in large part I have this community to thank for helping to support my family, for the home we have made, and the world we continue to love and serve in so many important ways.

 

Blessings,

Aaron