{"id":3330,"date":"2012-05-28T09:11:02","date_gmt":"2012-05-28T16:11:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/?p=3330"},"modified":"2012-05-28T09:11:02","modified_gmt":"2012-05-28T16:11:02","slug":"money-the-unfaithful-lover","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/2012\/05\/28\/money-the-unfaithful-lover\/","title":{"rendered":"Money, The Unfaithful Lover"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>Scrooge<\/em>, as played by Jim Carey, the archetype\u00a0of a life of poverty as wages for a love of money.
\n(By the way, that 2009 retelling of A Christmas Carol<\/em> was the best version I’ve seen. We watched it twice last season.)<\/h6>\n

Whoever loves money never has money enough; whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with his income.<\/strong>*<\/p>\n

Here’s a truth about one of our favorite preoccupations. But note that it’s not really about money, it’s about a love affair with it.<\/p>\n

God knows we need income, and promises our sustenance one way or another. He also reminds us that a person’s worth does not consist of the sum of his possessions. Still, it can take over . . . a one-sided love affair with a partner that is always elusive, generally unfaithful, looking beyond, and just not as interested in us as we are in her.<\/p>\n

One defense is to be as casual about her as she is about us.<\/p>\n

Anne and I just had another experience with her. We were offered the opportunity of showing and selling our art at a giant home and garden show. Throngs of people would be there, and it not being an art show per se, there would be little competition. Plus, every home needs art, right?<\/p>\n

Wrong! At least not in the eyes of those who passed us by with hardly a glance. It’s not that we hadn’t done our part . . . a full week of preparation, plenty of out of pocket in expenses, the best examples of our art, all the wisdom we could muster, and prayers. Yet in the three days of the event, we made not a penny.<\/p>\n

What’s with that?<\/p>\n

Maybe it’s the economy. Maybe it’s our prices? Maybe it’s the state of the culture generally. Or maybe it was just the wrong event for us. There may be a hundred reasons, and we endeavor to learn from it all.<\/p>\n

On other levels, maybe it’s a test of resolve, or maybe it’s guidance, or maybe it’s just another example of the irregularities of life. Nobody’s exempt from these things.<\/p>\n

One thing it wasn’t was a big disappointment. Why? Because it wasn’t only about the money anyway. That would have been one measure of success, and a nice one, but there are always others. We made a number of friends, made a few people happy with gifts or encouragements, became wiser through it all, and generally had a good time. When I think about it, my love for those things is a lot more reciprocal than any love affair with money.<\/p>\n

Besides that, we never missed a meal, had everything we needed, traveled in a functioning car and returned to a comfortable home. All these things are being provided for somehow.<\/p>\n

There are many ways to measure success. Money’s one; but not if it’s wished for too much. Then the wishing never ends.<\/p>\n

Wishing you all contentment, and peace, today.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

___________________________<\/p>\n

*Ecclesiastes 5:10<\/p>\n

Next:\u00a0The Passive Path to Ruin.<\/em>\u00a0Coming Friday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Money’s fine, and useful. It’s the love of it that can be the canker. Why not be as aloof toward her and she often is toward us?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3330"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3330"}],"version-history":[{"count":29,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3330\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3411,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3330\/revisions\/3411"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}