Money and the Way of Wisdom

Timothy J. Sandoval

Description

Powerful observations from the Book of Proverbs about life and money
can inform your financial choices even today.

These wise words are far more than one-dimensional pieces of folksy advice. Taken together, they form a coherent way of thinking about the world and the importance of committing to a life of wisdom.

Directly encounter the key texts from Proverbs, their historical setting, their structure and purpose. See the impact their profound teachings can have on your financial life today as an individual, as a member of a community, and as a global citizen. Topics include:

• Kindness to the Poor and Vulnerable
• The Rights of the Poor and Other Socially Vulnerable Groups
• Justice in the Marketplace
• Borrowing, Lending and Surety
• Bribes and Gifts
• Wealth’s Advantages
• Wealth and Fundamental Equality

Sujets

• Biblical Studies
• Philosophie et théologie
• Exegesis
• Proverbs
• Book of Proverbs
• Religion
• Bible

Informations

• Publié par: Turner Publishing Company
• Date de parution: 12 septembre 2013
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781594735509
• Langue: English

Extrait

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Para mis suegros, Don Tiburcio y Do a Antonia Yax, quienes no han sido ricos seg n este mundo, pero s lo han sido en sabiduria.
For my in-laws, Don Tiburcio and Do a Antonia Yax, who though never wealthy by the world s standards, are rich in wisdom.
C ONTENTS

Introduction
C HAPTER 1: Proverbs and the Book of Proverbs
C HAPTER 2: Understanding the Book of Proverbs
C HAPTER 3: Wisdom s Virtues in the Book of Proverbs
C HAPTER 4: Social Justice in the Book of Proverbs
C HAPTER 5: Discerning Wisdom and the Woman of Worth
My Path to Money and the Way of Wisdom
Notes
Discussion Guide
Suggestions for Further Reading
Acknowledgments
Index of Verses
About the Author
Copyright
Also Available
About SkyLight Paths
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I NTRODUCTION

The richest fifth of the world s people
consumes 86 percent of all goods and services
while the poorest fifth consumes just 1.3 percent .
-U NITED N ATIONS H UMAN D EVELOPMENT R EPORT OF 1998
Capitalism can make a society rich.
Don t ask it to make you happy as well.
-T HE E CONOMIST , VOL . 381
The Predicament of Money
Economic inequalities in our world are staggering. More than 50 percent of the global population scrapes through life in poverty, while those of us who live in the richest countries in the world are becoming more and more defined by what our money and prosperity can buy us. 1 We are bombarded with advertisements-on TV, on radio, in magazines, on billboards, on the Internet-encouraging us to use our money to consume more and more: a fancier car, a bigger house, a better stereo, and that new dining room set. When financial markets start to flag, we are encouraged to spend yet more , if not for ourselves then for the health of the nation s economy. The implicit promise is that our spending will make for a happy, fulfilled, and meaningful life-a good life in a strong society. As the modern, somewhat cynical proverb goes: The one who dies with the most toys wins!
Yet at the same time, for many of us-whatever our spiritual tradition, or none at all-there is a spiritual vacuum, a lack of meaning amid our prosperity, a sense that the promises of a good life that our consumerist culture offers are hollow, undeliverable. Some of us spend more and more hours in the office, forfeiting the joys that time spent with family and friends might bring and hoping that this investment in time, and the higher earnings it provides, will lead to a significant happiness payoff. According to the National Bureau of Economic Research, for instance, the number of college-educated males who regularly work more than fifty hours a week rose from 22 percent in 1980 to 30.5 percent in 2001. 2 Others among us are persistently anxious about our money, even in the midst of the prosperity that our homes, rich and diverse food, good education and health, and abundant possessions provide us. After all, we still have house payments, grocery bills, the kids university tuition, that high-deductible health plan premium, and the new car payments that never seem to end. Plus, we want to continue financially supporting our church, synagogue, or other spiritual home, as well as organizations that are doing such good work downtown or around the globe. In the midst of it all, we may wonder, Will we ever arrive ?
Exacerbating the feelings of hollowness and anxiety that some of us feel-even as we continue to chase happiness via our pocketbooks-is the genuine need we see around us every day, from the homeless vet looking for change on the off-ramp or the migrant laborer struggling clandestinely in a strange land, to the unfathomable reports of famine and global poverty we hear on the evening news. We know we should help-and we will (or we will help more), just as soon as we help ourselves a little more, just as soon as our money and prosperity finally secure our own well-being, our own happiness.
We all have heard that money can t buy us happiness. But why should any of us dwell on this point, especially those of us who are relatively well off? Money may not be able to buy us happiness, but it can buy a lot that seems to make our lives pretty good.
For one thing, sages across the centuries have long recognized that material prosperity does not inevitably result in spiritual fulfillment and that continued, anxious attempts to buy salvation (as it were) actually diminish human well-being. Our pursuit of the good life through the frenzied pursuit of wealth not only may not pay off, it actually carries its own costs. Even nonsages have begun to recognize that the unbridled pursuit of wealth and money can produce the sort of anxiety and diminished quality of relations with family and friends that we noted above; it can also contribute to things like mental illness. A report by James Montier of the investment bank Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein, for instance, suggests that paranoia, narcissism and attention deficit disorders are just some of the afflictions more likely to dog you if you pursue purely materialistic goals. 3
Large-scale, unbridled quests for money and riches, moreover, can also produce great economic inequalities like those we see in our world today. Significant economic inequality, in turn, can contribute to a range of social problems and generate strife between members of the same community, society, or country. In the rapidly changing nation of China, for example, a 2007 poll by the China Youth Daily found that 57 percent of those questioned were unhappy with the rich and used terms such as extravagant, greedy , and corrupt to describe them. A huge majority, 93 percent, also thought the rich should be socially responsible. Yet the same percentage of people wanted to be rich, too. 4 Despite a rough but clear sense of the moral dangers that the pursuit and attainment of significant wealth entails (people associate greed and corruption with the rich), most people who responded to this poll nonetheless desired to be rich, believing, one assumes, that wealth somehow holds the key to a good and flourishing life.
Yet the inequalities and class tensions that arise from the pursuit of wealth, as well as the belief that money equals happiness, are not limited to far-off places like China. In the United States and other affluent countries in the West, poor and working-class discontent with the excessive rewards of Wall Street hedge fund managers and executives golden parachutes is easy to discern. And although national incomes in these countries have increased significantly over the last several decades, the percentage of people who describe themselves as happy has remained constant. 5 As Jennifer Michael Hecht, author of The Happiness Myth , has stated, Above the poverty line, money is not the answer to happiness. 6
Our Response to the Predicament of Money
How, then, ought those of us-whether middle class or people of means-who possess some wealth, but may lack the full, meaningful life we desire, respond to this situation? Some of us, no doubt, have simply decided to live with, or ignore, the tension and anxiety that our money, and our pursuit of money, creates in our lives. Although experience tells us that prosperity does not hold the key to a genuinely good life, somewhere deep inside, a good number of us still hope that with a little more time, a few more promotions, or the right investment strategy, we will get the happiness payoff we so desperately, sometimes secretly, long for. Ultimately we may agree with John D. Rockefeller, who when asked, How much money is enough? supposedly famously quipped, One dollar more.
Others among us, however, seek to move beyond the tension and anxiety. We look to whatever spiritual resource we can find for some sort of enlightenment, some way out of the predicament. Some of us look to simplify our lives, or we seek peace of mind by supporting charities and joining the efforts of causes and organizations working for a more just world. Some of us turn to meditation to calm our troubled and anxious spirits. Others mine the texts and interpretations of Buddhism, Hinduism, or the world s indigenous peoples for answers, hoping that among the insights of these disparate faiths and cultures we will find some wisdom for living in our world today. We buy whatever spiritual advice book we can get our hands on-maybe even this one. We are consumers, after all.
The Bible and the Book of Proverbs
This book is about helping you break out of the predicament, whatever spiritual path you follow. But it s different, too. It s not a self-help book, though it talks about the ways some of us might change how we think about, and what we do with, our money-for example, whether our investments ought to be made in a socially conscious way. But, more important, it asks us both to delve beneath the surface of our individual behaviors and to examine our fundamental moral orientations in order to discover whether our actions and beliefs are beneficial to our spirit and our world. Giving to charity may be a good thing to do-but why, and what are the limitations of such good work? Through this book we can begin to ask the deeper questions of ourselves; in the process, we can discover what our fundamental prioritie