Elizabeth, I tremble with excitement at your courage to ask to be sustained. The answer to this doesn't have to be yes, but might you consider letting us know what a sustaining total might be? So that the folks out here grateful to have your beating heart, listening ear, and praying lips and fingertips at work in the world know when we've fulfilled your request? As you say, we'd rather do almost anything than talk about money. I have asked for $6K on my Substack, and there is no built in capping feature, so once my stipend request has been met(which it has) I've thought about encouraging people to sustain other artists, organizers, projects on my behalf.
Wow what a challenge! Would require me to much clearer budgetarily but we’ve been wanting to move in that direction anyway. I’m going to go away and pray and ponder. And thank you
I'm going to try to put out a detailed personal budget next week on my Substack, and I've wondered how it will be received. 1) How will I give voice to the surrounding factors that allow me to live on 2-5K/year? Generous family support, generous neighbors, generous soil, sunlight, rainfall, land access, etc. 2) Will anyone deem it worth taking the time to read through it, or consider the possibility that there could actually be an "enough" and a "too much" when it comes to money and the power it carries, a power to enact one's preferences upon the world. There's more to say, but for now I'll say that I am grateful to be in the conversation with you, Liz. Your book and work in general are important, and much more accessible to a wider audience than mine, and that feels important in our time.
I just read the "faith without works is dead" passage from James in church last week--for the first time--and I haven't been able to shake it from my awareness. By that measure, when a church becomes a middle class social club, it is dead. Imagine replacing "faith" with "fellowship" or even "friendship." I can tell I'll be writing in that direction soon. Thank you for inviting people to step toward the work that might breathe life back into the church.
I love seeing the two of you discuss here. I follow you both closely and just spent a weekend in Chicago with Dougald! I am trying to slowly and gently break my congregational community out of the mindset of being a middle class social club... We need to practice sharing resources (as a spiritual practice in itself) and openly speak to our struggle to live in ways faithful to something other than the market. Your thoughtful language about gifts really helps me, Adam. I am practicing using it, but still have lots to learn.
The Simone Weil Catholic Worker in Portland is doing some interesting and creative work to bring relationships back into lending. I haven't spoken with them yet, but they have some very detailed docs on their website. It's complex and still involves working with a credit union. But perhaps it could be a halfway house between a more 'pure' gift economy and our existing everyone-for-themselves scheme.
If I were your neighbor I could offer you honey and eggs and organic garlic in return for your writing, but these things don’t travel well overseas and the bank won’t accept them for mortgage payment…which is quite unreasonable.
I’m just now realizing that supporting certain writers on Substack (like you) can and should be part of where I may be called to tithe.
It’s not about “what I get” from every post, but about participating in the ways your BEING nourishes connection with the Real. I support your way of being. It feels essential to me.
Once upon a time, people believed that materially supporting monastics was a worthy thing because their dedicated attention to the sacred somehow made a difference to all the rest of us, even if it was an unquantifiable difference. I think I still believe this.
What a great thread. Thank you Elizabeth for the touchstone. Nicolas, yes and rumor (is that the correct word?) suggests Nicodemus threw in a few coins now and then too! I suspect it all depends how large is the camel relative to the eye of a needle. I went to India 45 years ago with about £1000 it was given away or mostly stolen within two weeks. Managed to stay in India for many months with no money but was gifted infinite kindness...Now of course I am 64 and inhabit a different story. A narrative like you, Elizabeth, of Children and bills (in-laws with dementia and on it goes).
I often visit Pluscarden abbey in Moray. The monks there take an Oath, which after Benedictine, their founder, includes Poverty. Part of me would love to be a monk ...but then what of the folk we are, however temporarily, responsible for.
Anyway i am going to upgrade to paid not least, for the sublime conversation available freely on line you had at the Perspectiva conference with the magnificently humble Alistair Macintosh...
I get it, friend. I have struggled with many of the same thoughts/feelings. On my own Substack, I have introduced a different approach: half of paid subscription dollars go toward paying for our fuel as we travel full-time, and half go toward meeting the needs of others we meet along our journey. But this is only because we were able to sell everything, including the big house, and commit to a ridiculously inexpensive lifestyle (nomadic travel, owning only what we carry in our truck camper). I wish our society valued paying artisans for their craft. *Sigh* 💜
Oh, Elizabeth, you should write more on the topic of money! If not just for me personally - it feels very relevant 😅
After first-time house-hunting (amid a housing shortage) and facing a hold on raises at work (a place I get a deep sense of community and vocation) and realizing the insane costs of childcare in the US (no kids yet but...hopefully soon). Ugh. Being an adult is hard and expensive. And yet I am SO privileged! Every decision feels so morally heavy, but it is near impossible to break the cultural financial mold.
And - get this - I work as a fundraiser for a monastery, of all things! So money and morals are on my mind a lot.
I've been following your work closely for a couple months now. Your book made me feel less alone in all of this and I just shared it with a friend last night. Thank you, sincerely, for your writing.
One other factor is climate change. There is a direct link between people’s incomes and their carbon emissions. As part of my family’s drive to decrease our collective emissions I have moved jobs 4 times in the last 3 years, and each time either to less hours worked, or to a lower paid job. I am now self employed, and we have discussed setting ourselves both a minimum and a maximum total family income. Minimum is about £30k, and is based on what our family of 4 needs to just cover our basic heeds where we live, in our particular financial circumstances. We are still working out the maximum salary, but i exoect it to sit somewhere south of £45k. It will be the minimum salary, plus a couple of nice (train based so low carbon!) holidays and a bit more so we can be generous to others. As a self employed person, once we go over the “maximum” salary i will either work for free on more “worthy” jobs that would struggle to pay my normal rates, or just take on less work. So far i seem to be balancing out quite well and my (and my wifes) full years salary will sit in the range we have set.
I think we need to be bolder when talking about money, so, my wife and I bring in a total of about £36k/year. We have two adult children at home, one on a gap year and the other with Special Needs. I have no idea where that puts us in rankings and things like that. I don't feel that we want for anything, and we are able to give away just over £4500/year. Perhaps we should give more. Still, life is good.
Thanks for this. I am always happy to talk about money in detail, as well as its fellow polycule members, class and privilege. This makes for some awkward grimaces during conversations in America, where it seems they are even less happy to talk about money than the British. I write poetry about money, because it's a massive part of life for those of us who don't have enough. At the link I read 'This Poem' which is mostly about people not having enough money or food, then going to pick up fallen fruit for local people who don't even have time to glean, and how that contrasts with the lives of aristocracy I have known over the years. https://www.instagram.com/reel/ChUp1MulLAR/
I can't help but wonder if you are familiar with the Bruderhof? An intentional Christian community with locations in the UK and US? I've lived at a Bruderhof in NY with my husband for the past three years. The communities hold a common purse. As individuals we all renounce private property but we earn money collectively through our community businesses. We share our whole lives together and every need is met. Modeled on the early church as represented in Acts.
I can't tell you how amazing it has been to experience a way out of our cultural systems based on mammon. To experience that another life is possible! Through radical discipleship to Jesus. And in this case, a vocation to complete community.
If you haven't already you should visit a community. Would love to hear your impressions.
Oh beautiful! I also just remembered I read you in Plough recently. I listen to The Sacred while I sort our clothes to go to the communal laundry. :)
But yeah, it's amazing to reflect on how things I first experienced as limits—whether it's in dress, money, or submission to the order—have become real sources of freedom (most of the time). I hope you experience the same through your money constraints this season. Appreciate you opening up this conversation.
One other thought, as I struggle also with this tension between practicality and trust— a friend has reminded me of one group that has quietly navigated this pretty well for decades: A.A.. While “the steps” are well known for individuals, the 12 Traditions guide the internal community life of the organization. And they have a lot to say about money management! Not discussed much outside of recovery groups, the long form of the Traditions especially offers a lot to ponder about where the spiritual and the material intersect.
Thank you for this - as a freelance writer / performer / myriad job-titler for over a decade, it's a relationship often on my mind and felt in my pocket. I especially felt you on Trust vs Pragmatism: a square I'm always attempting to circle. Wishing you so much abundance in whatever form as you switch it up into some paid posts!
I read this with interest. I was not brought up to be afraid or reluctant or too private to talk about money, and was very surprised in early adulthood to discover I wasn't supposed to mention it. I have never understood what it feels like, or how people rationalize not talking about it. Can you enlighten me? I have learned my lesson, but I don't get it.
to comment on making this paid--I belonged to a small supportive artists group which was started by an artists coach because she wanted incentive to get into her studio. It was very successful, and we had artists from all over the world-a very friendly and talented group. Very inspiring. Then she decided to charge for it, and it became just another commodity to be weighed against other possibilities (can I afford my kid's lunches, my exercise class, organic food, or my artist's group? Before that it was a joyful commitment; after it was a difficulty. Not that this speaks directly to you, but it's a related experience. PS I love your writing.
I cannot thank you enough for sharing your thoughts on this topic. You are correct, no one seems to want to share specifically about money. Yes, plenty of “financial advice gurus” out there, or people asking for money, but it seems no one is talking about personal finances or the tensions you share here . After being at home with my kids full time for the past 14 years (talk about a gap in the CV!), I am trying to renter the workforce and the things you said and other thoughts around money keep me up at night! I also enjoyed listening to your discussion on The Real Question podcast about quitting your plan B. So. Good. Thank you, thank you.🙏
For the past 7 or 8 years I've been a 'student', first working on a distance MA and now my PhD (the latter in theology, of all things). My husband is the work-from-home breadwinner and I'm definitely not entirely okay with not bringing in some moolah. I worked for a dozen years as a teacher, then at odd jobs in a small, rural Alaskan community, where we now live and where I complete my thesis in relative isolation and blessed solitude. There is a church here (in fact, we live above it) and I am part of something bigger than myself in living in this remote place. I am happy. I am working toward something... important, I think. I know that my presence and faith contribute to the goodness here. I am healthy and our needs are met. But why then do I regularly go to war (or at least do battle) with that voice that asks whether or not I am being lazy, irresponsible, less, for not having formal employment? It's a question that this post and reflection helps me to address, if not answer. Thank you for that, and for bringing us with you on this fully-alive journey.
I would like to respond, especially to the following:
“I don’t want to keep myself safe. My temptation to hoard and self-protect is a form of disconnection, a move away from fully aliveness. The deepest part of me believes (or wants to believe) that real safety is only to be found in Love divine, and in other people. In relationship, vertical and horizontal. We are meant to be each other’s safety
And, of course, the fact I like good sheets and fancy face cream…”
The first thing I’d like to express is my gratitude: to Adam Wilson, who’s mention of your post brought me here. And to the odd and fractionated community of people who care enough about discourse, conversation, and stories to write and publish. Publishing has become such a weird, awkward, and (especially for those who write about politics) ever more dangerous world.
While I have sold tens of (maybe even 100) thousands of copies of a little how-to book, I feel I have a very small part in this “publishing community.” While there’s a lot I think and talk about, I find that I’m less and less interested in “developing a readership.” First of all, others are doing a better job of it than me. Second, joining the insane race for the increasingly fragmented attention of increasingly distracted humans just doesn’t seem like a good bet. More and more, I’m trying to find ways to talk to my neighbors, preferably in person. I am grateful, also, for my neighbors. Even when they don’t have time to talk…
OK, on to the topic: money: Since I started working for money 50 years ago, my average Adjusted Gross Income (as recorded by the IRS…my brain doesn’t hold onto numbers) has been about $8k/yr. I lived in shared housing when I was single, and until my mom died and left me an unexpected windfall that enabled the purchase of house and land (that’s another story), I never paid more than $250/month for rent (note that the last 20 years of rent were for a 10x22 cabin and a 16x20 woodshed that I converted into working and then living space. About 1/3-1/2 of the rent was paid in labor, and it’s where my wife and I raised two boys until they were 12 and 9.) We grew a garden, made our own bread, and didn’t buy new sheets or fancy face cream, much less new cars, electronics, kitchen gadgets, vacations, “recreational gear,” etc. We might have deprived our kids of some “normal” activities, but we were relatively safe and happy, mostly due to good luck and associated privileges, but safety has never been my motive. Now I’m 65 and single and sharing my house with a young family. My housing expenses are lower than they’ve ever been, and the same goes for the family who shares the place with me. I am SO grateful for the opportunity to pass on the gift of cheap housing that made my life possible. Otherwise, my cash needs have always been low. As a family of four, we lived at or below the official “poverty line” for 20 years (for the last year of married tax returns, I think that was about $32k; for now, I think my life is costing me about 15k/year.) The other benefit of that strategy is that I’ve contributed little to the military budget that pays for genocide in Gaza. And elsewhere.
OK, that’s money. Now for opinion: Is it right, moral, justifiable to “make a living” by writing, or “making art”? Did Jesus “earn a living” by writing the New Testament, or even by preaching? Was he not a carpenter? I read somewhere that he probably made doors and windows; maybe even the crosses the Romans used for crucifiction…
The tellers of Bible stories gifted them to their listeners. Eventually, the tellers wrote the stories down. There were no subscribers, no Patreon, but the stories live on just the same. People paid printers for bibles. The art of memorization declined.
Michelangelo worked for Popes and royalty who were like today’s one-percenters. They spent huge sums on vanity projects that enhanced their status, and affirmed their power. Their extravagance inspired protestants to demand church reform, to curb the profiterring racket trade in spiritual well-being (think indulgences), military might, and world politics. So even Michelangelo’s art can be seen as a commodity, a thing to be counted and weighed against other things in a world ruled by wealth and power.
Such, it seems to me, is the life of art as a thing. But art — whether you write, or paint, or sculpt, or teach, or design airplanes or software — is not a thing. Art simple means “to fit together.” It shares a root with words like Harmony, Order, Ratio, Reason, Ornament, and Ordain. It’s what all living creatures do in order to survive. We have to fit ourselves into life, and we have to insure that our progeny learn the lessons they need in order to insure their survival, and the passing on of the gift.
For money, I teach, build things, and make utilitarian items out of wood. And live cheap. I do have some background and experience in publishing; I was staff at a short-term training camp for the industry, but was not inspired to join that race. Instead, I edited and wrote newsletters for a food co-op (volunteer) and a neighborhood organization (paid to organize volunteer staff, edit, do layout, and coordinate production). Later, I helped develop training materials for a non-profit housing effort. After I moved into my cabin in the boondocks, I wrote a little how-to book in my spare time, when I wasn’t gardening, teaching, or building. I was lucky: it covered an uncovered topic, and hit the market just at the right time to sell books and make some money…and I published and marketed it myself. I published a few other little books; one that I inherited from my mom even makes a little money as a perennial backlist book.
I got into publishing just before Amazon took over, when we still sent people comp copies and paper press releases. Publishing, however, began as printing. People didn’t pay for writing; they paid for books. Now we pay for the internet, but the internet doesn’t pay us for the “content” we produce. Instead, the content generates income for the presses, which are now composed of monsters that devour enormous amounts of energy and water to feed and cool the huge servers that produce and maintain the bits and bytes that we read on our screens (which we have to replace every few years because they’re continually rendered obsolete by the companies that manufacture them).
A.J. Liebling famously said that “freedom of the press belongs to those who own one.”
It seems to me that our freedom cannot come from Patreon or Substack. Maybe it will have to come talking and working together. And maybe writing letters. Maybe, eventually, even writing on paper again. In the meantime, I contribute this under-edited comment. I do appreciate the exchanges here and on things like substack, tho I’m not going to be signing up for a paid subscription — not so much because I object to paying good people for their time (I loved Amanda Fucking Palmer’s book, The Art of Asking), but because I don’t have time to keep up so many disembodied conversations. But I’ve been chewing on this topic for awhile, and the words just started to come…
Take what you like and leave the rest. I hope no one will take this as a personal criticism. I just think that the medium itself is the elephant in the room that we ignore at our own risk.
This has come at *just* the right time for me. I have been wrestling for months about whether to offer subscriptions on here to help pay the rent for my studio, but I am AFRAID in all the same ways that you are. It seems easier to get a part-time job than to get paid for what I am already doing. I will listen again and then take the plunge one way or the other.
Elizabeth, I tremble with excitement at your courage to ask to be sustained. The answer to this doesn't have to be yes, but might you consider letting us know what a sustaining total might be? So that the folks out here grateful to have your beating heart, listening ear, and praying lips and fingertips at work in the world know when we've fulfilled your request? As you say, we'd rather do almost anything than talk about money. I have asked for $6K on my Substack, and there is no built in capping feature, so once my stipend request has been met(which it has) I've thought about encouraging people to sustain other artists, organizers, projects on my behalf.
Wow what a challenge! Would require me to much clearer budgetarily but we’ve been wanting to move in that direction anyway. I’m going to go away and pray and ponder. And thank you
I'm going to try to put out a detailed personal budget next week on my Substack, and I've wondered how it will be received. 1) How will I give voice to the surrounding factors that allow me to live on 2-5K/year? Generous family support, generous neighbors, generous soil, sunlight, rainfall, land access, etc. 2) Will anyone deem it worth taking the time to read through it, or consider the possibility that there could actually be an "enough" and a "too much" when it comes to money and the power it carries, a power to enact one's preferences upon the world. There's more to say, but for now I'll say that I am grateful to be in the conversation with you, Liz. Your book and work in general are important, and much more accessible to a wider audience than mine, and that feels important in our time.
I just read the "faith without works is dead" passage from James in church last week--for the first time--and I haven't been able to shake it from my awareness. By that measure, when a church becomes a middle class social club, it is dead. Imagine replacing "faith" with "fellowship" or even "friendship." I can tell I'll be writing in that direction soon. Thank you for inviting people to step toward the work that might breathe life back into the church.
I love seeing the two of you discuss here. I follow you both closely and just spent a weekend in Chicago with Dougald! I am trying to slowly and gently break my congregational community out of the mindset of being a middle class social club... We need to practice sharing resources (as a spiritual practice in itself) and openly speak to our struggle to live in ways faithful to something other than the market. Your thoughtful language about gifts really helps me, Adam. I am practicing using it, but still have lots to learn.
The Simone Weil Catholic Worker in Portland is doing some interesting and creative work to bring relationships back into lending. I haven't spoken with them yet, but they have some very detailed docs on their website. It's complex and still involves working with a credit union. But perhaps it could be a halfway house between a more 'pure' gift economy and our existing everyone-for-themselves scheme.
If I were your neighbor I could offer you honey and eggs and organic garlic in return for your writing, but these things don’t travel well overseas and the bank won’t accept them for mortgage payment…which is quite unreasonable.
Ha I would love that!
I’m just now realizing that supporting certain writers on Substack (like you) can and should be part of where I may be called to tithe.
It’s not about “what I get” from every post, but about participating in the ways your BEING nourishes connection with the Real. I support your way of being. It feels essential to me.
Once upon a time, people believed that materially supporting monastics was a worthy thing because their dedicated attention to the sacred somehow made a difference to all the rest of us, even if it was an unquantifiable difference. I think I still believe this.
What a great thread. Thank you Elizabeth for the touchstone. Nicolas, yes and rumor (is that the correct word?) suggests Nicodemus threw in a few coins now and then too! I suspect it all depends how large is the camel relative to the eye of a needle. I went to India 45 years ago with about £1000 it was given away or mostly stolen within two weeks. Managed to stay in India for many months with no money but was gifted infinite kindness...Now of course I am 64 and inhabit a different story. A narrative like you, Elizabeth, of Children and bills (in-laws with dementia and on it goes).
I often visit Pluscarden abbey in Moray. The monks there take an Oath, which after Benedictine, their founder, includes Poverty. Part of me would love to be a monk ...but then what of the folk we are, however temporarily, responsible for.
Anyway i am going to upgrade to paid not least, for the sublime conversation available freely on line you had at the Perspectiva conference with the magnificently humble Alistair Macintosh...
Thank you once again.
Thank you!
I get it, friend. I have struggled with many of the same thoughts/feelings. On my own Substack, I have introduced a different approach: half of paid subscription dollars go toward paying for our fuel as we travel full-time, and half go toward meeting the needs of others we meet along our journey. But this is only because we were able to sell everything, including the big house, and commit to a ridiculously inexpensive lifestyle (nomadic travel, owning only what we carry in our truck camper). I wish our society valued paying artisans for their craft. *Sigh* 💜
Super interesting
Oh, Elizabeth, you should write more on the topic of money! If not just for me personally - it feels very relevant 😅
After first-time house-hunting (amid a housing shortage) and facing a hold on raises at work (a place I get a deep sense of community and vocation) and realizing the insane costs of childcare in the US (no kids yet but...hopefully soon). Ugh. Being an adult is hard and expensive. And yet I am SO privileged! Every decision feels so morally heavy, but it is near impossible to break the cultural financial mold.
And - get this - I work as a fundraiser for a monastery, of all things! So money and morals are on my mind a lot.
I've been following your work closely for a couple months now. Your book made me feel less alone in all of this and I just shared it with a friend last night. Thank you, sincerely, for your writing.
Gosh that is a wonderful thing to say thank you. May we all feel less alone
One other factor is climate change. There is a direct link between people’s incomes and their carbon emissions. As part of my family’s drive to decrease our collective emissions I have moved jobs 4 times in the last 3 years, and each time either to less hours worked, or to a lower paid job. I am now self employed, and we have discussed setting ourselves both a minimum and a maximum total family income. Minimum is about £30k, and is based on what our family of 4 needs to just cover our basic heeds where we live, in our particular financial circumstances. We are still working out the maximum salary, but i exoect it to sit somewhere south of £45k. It will be the minimum salary, plus a couple of nice (train based so low carbon!) holidays and a bit more so we can be generous to others. As a self employed person, once we go over the “maximum” salary i will either work for free on more “worthy” jobs that would struggle to pay my normal rates, or just take on less work. So far i seem to be balancing out quite well and my (and my wifes) full years salary will sit in the range we have set.
This is so interesting
I think we need to be bolder when talking about money, so, my wife and I bring in a total of about £36k/year. We have two adult children at home, one on a gap year and the other with Special Needs. I have no idea where that puts us in rankings and things like that. I don't feel that we want for anything, and we are able to give away just over £4500/year. Perhaps we should give more. Still, life is good.
Really helpful to hear thank you
Thanks for this. I am always happy to talk about money in detail, as well as its fellow polycule members, class and privilege. This makes for some awkward grimaces during conversations in America, where it seems they are even less happy to talk about money than the British. I write poetry about money, because it's a massive part of life for those of us who don't have enough. At the link I read 'This Poem' which is mostly about people not having enough money or food, then going to pick up fallen fruit for local people who don't even have time to glean, and how that contrasts with the lives of aristocracy I have known over the years. https://www.instagram.com/reel/ChUp1MulLAR/
Good luck with the new paid tier too!
Caro I guess you have seen Agnes Varda's film The Gleaners and I? Nevertheless I'll mention it just in case / for others here
Ah, I haven't seen it.
First four and a half minutes here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jn8nHJTb_LY
I forgot you don't like movies! Me neither. But it's very gentle and home made
I love movies! I just need to overcome some weird physical resistance to watching them. Will attempt to.
I can't help but wonder if you are familiar with the Bruderhof? An intentional Christian community with locations in the UK and US? I've lived at a Bruderhof in NY with my husband for the past three years. The communities hold a common purse. As individuals we all renounce private property but we earn money collectively through our community businesses. We share our whole lives together and every need is met. Modeled on the early church as represented in Acts.
I can't tell you how amazing it has been to experience a way out of our cultural systems based on mammon. To experience that another life is possible! Through radical discipleship to Jesus. And in this case, a vocation to complete community.
If you haven't already you should visit a community. Would love to hear your impressions.
Thanks very much for your work!
I am! We have Another Life is Possible displayed in our community house. I am very drawn to the logic of how they live.
Oh beautiful! I also just remembered I read you in Plough recently. I listen to The Sacred while I sort our clothes to go to the communal laundry. :)
But yeah, it's amazing to reflect on how things I first experienced as limits—whether it's in dress, money, or submission to the order—have become real sources of freedom (most of the time). I hope you experience the same through your money constraints this season. Appreciate you opening up this conversation.
One other thought, as I struggle also with this tension between practicality and trust— a friend has reminded me of one group that has quietly navigated this pretty well for decades: A.A.. While “the steps” are well known for individuals, the 12 Traditions guide the internal community life of the organization. And they have a lot to say about money management! Not discussed much outside of recovery groups, the long form of the Traditions especially offers a lot to ponder about where the spiritual and the material intersect.
https://www.aa.org/the-twelve-traditions
(Come to think of it, I’d love to hear a Sacred interview with someone who’s really familiar with these Traditions!)
Oooh
Thank you for this - as a freelance writer / performer / myriad job-titler for over a decade, it's a relationship often on my mind and felt in my pocket. I especially felt you on Trust vs Pragmatism: a square I'm always attempting to circle. Wishing you so much abundance in whatever form as you switch it up into some paid posts!
I read this with interest. I was not brought up to be afraid or reluctant or too private to talk about money, and was very surprised in early adulthood to discover I wasn't supposed to mention it. I have never understood what it feels like, or how people rationalize not talking about it. Can you enlighten me? I have learned my lesson, but I don't get it.
to comment on making this paid--I belonged to a small supportive artists group which was started by an artists coach because she wanted incentive to get into her studio. It was very successful, and we had artists from all over the world-a very friendly and talented group. Very inspiring. Then she decided to charge for it, and it became just another commodity to be weighed against other possibilities (can I afford my kid's lunches, my exercise class, organic food, or my artist's group? Before that it was a joyful commitment; after it was a difficulty. Not that this speaks directly to you, but it's a related experience. PS I love your writing.
Thank you! Yes that’s what I mean about money too easily messing with relationship
I cannot thank you enough for sharing your thoughts on this topic. You are correct, no one seems to want to share specifically about money. Yes, plenty of “financial advice gurus” out there, or people asking for money, but it seems no one is talking about personal finances or the tensions you share here . After being at home with my kids full time for the past 14 years (talk about a gap in the CV!), I am trying to renter the workforce and the things you said and other thoughts around money keep me up at night! I also enjoyed listening to your discussion on The Real Question podcast about quitting your plan B. So. Good. Thank you, thank you.🙏
For the past 7 or 8 years I've been a 'student', first working on a distance MA and now my PhD (the latter in theology, of all things). My husband is the work-from-home breadwinner and I'm definitely not entirely okay with not bringing in some moolah. I worked for a dozen years as a teacher, then at odd jobs in a small, rural Alaskan community, where we now live and where I complete my thesis in relative isolation and blessed solitude. There is a church here (in fact, we live above it) and I am part of something bigger than myself in living in this remote place. I am happy. I am working toward something... important, I think. I know that my presence and faith contribute to the goodness here. I am healthy and our needs are met. But why then do I regularly go to war (or at least do battle) with that voice that asks whether or not I am being lazy, irresponsible, less, for not having formal employment? It's a question that this post and reflection helps me to address, if not answer. Thank you for that, and for bringing us with you on this fully-alive journey.
I would like to respond, especially to the following:
“I don’t want to keep myself safe. My temptation to hoard and self-protect is a form of disconnection, a move away from fully aliveness. The deepest part of me believes (or wants to believe) that real safety is only to be found in Love divine, and in other people. In relationship, vertical and horizontal. We are meant to be each other’s safety
And, of course, the fact I like good sheets and fancy face cream…”
The first thing I’d like to express is my gratitude: to Adam Wilson, who’s mention of your post brought me here. And to the odd and fractionated community of people who care enough about discourse, conversation, and stories to write and publish. Publishing has become such a weird, awkward, and (especially for those who write about politics) ever more dangerous world.
While I have sold tens of (maybe even 100) thousands of copies of a little how-to book, I feel I have a very small part in this “publishing community.” While there’s a lot I think and talk about, I find that I’m less and less interested in “developing a readership.” First of all, others are doing a better job of it than me. Second, joining the insane race for the increasingly fragmented attention of increasingly distracted humans just doesn’t seem like a good bet. More and more, I’m trying to find ways to talk to my neighbors, preferably in person. I am grateful, also, for my neighbors. Even when they don’t have time to talk…
OK, on to the topic: money: Since I started working for money 50 years ago, my average Adjusted Gross Income (as recorded by the IRS…my brain doesn’t hold onto numbers) has been about $8k/yr. I lived in shared housing when I was single, and until my mom died and left me an unexpected windfall that enabled the purchase of house and land (that’s another story), I never paid more than $250/month for rent (note that the last 20 years of rent were for a 10x22 cabin and a 16x20 woodshed that I converted into working and then living space. About 1/3-1/2 of the rent was paid in labor, and it’s where my wife and I raised two boys until they were 12 and 9.) We grew a garden, made our own bread, and didn’t buy new sheets or fancy face cream, much less new cars, electronics, kitchen gadgets, vacations, “recreational gear,” etc. We might have deprived our kids of some “normal” activities, but we were relatively safe and happy, mostly due to good luck and associated privileges, but safety has never been my motive. Now I’m 65 and single and sharing my house with a young family. My housing expenses are lower than they’ve ever been, and the same goes for the family who shares the place with me. I am SO grateful for the opportunity to pass on the gift of cheap housing that made my life possible. Otherwise, my cash needs have always been low. As a family of four, we lived at or below the official “poverty line” for 20 years (for the last year of married tax returns, I think that was about $32k; for now, I think my life is costing me about 15k/year.) The other benefit of that strategy is that I’ve contributed little to the military budget that pays for genocide in Gaza. And elsewhere.
OK, that’s money. Now for opinion: Is it right, moral, justifiable to “make a living” by writing, or “making art”? Did Jesus “earn a living” by writing the New Testament, or even by preaching? Was he not a carpenter? I read somewhere that he probably made doors and windows; maybe even the crosses the Romans used for crucifiction…
The tellers of Bible stories gifted them to their listeners. Eventually, the tellers wrote the stories down. There were no subscribers, no Patreon, but the stories live on just the same. People paid printers for bibles. The art of memorization declined.
Michelangelo worked for Popes and royalty who were like today’s one-percenters. They spent huge sums on vanity projects that enhanced their status, and affirmed their power. Their extravagance inspired protestants to demand church reform, to curb the profiterring racket trade in spiritual well-being (think indulgences), military might, and world politics. So even Michelangelo’s art can be seen as a commodity, a thing to be counted and weighed against other things in a world ruled by wealth and power.
Such, it seems to me, is the life of art as a thing. But art — whether you write, or paint, or sculpt, or teach, or design airplanes or software — is not a thing. Art simple means “to fit together.” It shares a root with words like Harmony, Order, Ratio, Reason, Ornament, and Ordain. It’s what all living creatures do in order to survive. We have to fit ourselves into life, and we have to insure that our progeny learn the lessons they need in order to insure their survival, and the passing on of the gift.
For money, I teach, build things, and make utilitarian items out of wood. And live cheap. I do have some background and experience in publishing; I was staff at a short-term training camp for the industry, but was not inspired to join that race. Instead, I edited and wrote newsletters for a food co-op (volunteer) and a neighborhood organization (paid to organize volunteer staff, edit, do layout, and coordinate production). Later, I helped develop training materials for a non-profit housing effort. After I moved into my cabin in the boondocks, I wrote a little how-to book in my spare time, when I wasn’t gardening, teaching, or building. I was lucky: it covered an uncovered topic, and hit the market just at the right time to sell books and make some money…and I published and marketed it myself. I published a few other little books; one that I inherited from my mom even makes a little money as a perennial backlist book.
I got into publishing just before Amazon took over, when we still sent people comp copies and paper press releases. Publishing, however, began as printing. People didn’t pay for writing; they paid for books. Now we pay for the internet, but the internet doesn’t pay us for the “content” we produce. Instead, the content generates income for the presses, which are now composed of monsters that devour enormous amounts of energy and water to feed and cool the huge servers that produce and maintain the bits and bytes that we read on our screens (which we have to replace every few years because they’re continually rendered obsolete by the companies that manufacture them).
A.J. Liebling famously said that “freedom of the press belongs to those who own one.”
It seems to me that our freedom cannot come from Patreon or Substack. Maybe it will have to come talking and working together. And maybe writing letters. Maybe, eventually, even writing on paper again. In the meantime, I contribute this under-edited comment. I do appreciate the exchanges here and on things like substack, tho I’m not going to be signing up for a paid subscription — not so much because I object to paying good people for their time (I loved Amanda Fucking Palmer’s book, The Art of Asking), but because I don’t have time to keep up so many disembodied conversations. But I’ve been chewing on this topic for awhile, and the words just started to come…
Take what you like and leave the rest. I hope no one will take this as a personal criticism. I just think that the medium itself is the elephant in the room that we ignore at our own risk.
This has come at *just* the right time for me. I have been wrestling for months about whether to offer subscriptions on here to help pay the rent for my studio, but I am AFRAID in all the same ways that you are. It seems easier to get a part-time job than to get paid for what I am already doing. I will listen again and then take the plunge one way or the other.