And about money!

Brooks said once: we exist only in relationship. This is something I’ve been thinking about for a long time, trying to “figure it out”, figure out relationships. What are they about, what are they for? As I was writing the last two posts, as I was experiencing what was coming up as my old friendship came back to light, I started realizing that there is a sort of “common denominator” in being in relationship that’s true for all kinds of relationships: to other humans, to things, to events, to reality. This common denominator is being God in relationship. God will be relating differently to a spouse, to a friend, to a dog, to a thing — but no matter who or what it is that God hangs out with – God is still God. And in that lies the quality of relationship: God is God. No matter what company God is in at the moment – God is God. Fully and completely unique and independent. This, I believe, is how God is in relationship – unique and independent. Always. And by that I mean – it is God deciding on how his experience looks like, how his life looks like. It is God that creates it. My husband talked to a millionaire acquaintance of ours few weeks ago. The millionaire told him: having lots of money is great! It feels great! He said: the great thing about having lots of money is that you don’t have to worry about it ever again. You can do whatever you want and money isn’t an issue anymore. What is it that he is really saying there? He says: you will never have to worry about money anymore. We do worry about money all the time, don’t we. I know I do. A lot of things depends on money – what I can do, what I can have, depends on money. Where I can go depends on money, how my life looks like depends on money, on how much of it I have. We usually structure our lives such that we get as much money as possible, doing things that will bring us as much money as possible. As I thought about it a thought struck me – isn’t this a total dependency? Isn’t this a perfect description of an addiction? If we think obsessively about something, if we structure all our life around it – isn’t that an addiction? What is an addiction – it is making something or someone else responsible for our life. When we make money responsible for how our lifes go, money really decides, our financial situation has the last word, and we do only what it allows us to do (with the occasional outburst of rebellion when we do something “we can’t afford”, and feel terribly guilty afterwords.) One way to remove the pain and fear that comes with an addiction is to make sure that we always have plenty of what we “need”. If we have lots of money we’ll never have to worry about what will happen if we don’t have it. The discomfort goes away. Another way is to realize that we are God. If we claim our power back, when we realize that we are always free to create our lives however we want them to look like – then we realize that money has nothing to do with it. Money has nothing to do with who we are, what we do, where we go. We decide, not money. If that’s the case – we don’t need it, certainly there is no reason to concentrate almost exclusively on getting it. In relationship God is completely independent. In romantic relationship, in friendship, in relationship to money – God is independent and so there is no “need”, there is no attachment. Why would God become attached? Only in places where God forgets himself and starts thinking that he can find himself in someone else does God become dependent and attached. Only in places where God forgets herself and believes that she can find herself in something else does she become dependent and attached. But when we realize who we are, when we realize we are God – there is no need, because we don’t miss anything. There is no attachment, because we don’t miss anything that we would need from someone or something else. We are fully independent and free. No matter whether we are in relationship with a friend, with a lover, with a stranger, with money – we are experiencing an unlimited space, unlimited freedom, unlimited possibilities of creation – because we are God. We are missing nothing. We are everything.