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.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I am doing a review of the Substacks I can support financially so I will consider a paid subscription. I really value your writing and your work more generally. I guess I feel comfortable sharing this online: last month during a concert in Manchester I felt that God was telling me, very definitely, that it was time to "come home," as it were, by joining a church (after 10 years of being away). This has been a long road, there have been other significant moments there that I probably ignored. Your work has played a role in that journey for me. I went to church last Sunday and I am committed to rediscovering Jesus. I'm so grateful for your work and the work of many others out there. Thanks for being vulnerable. Money is a tough subject.
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.
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.
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.
Thank you Elizabeth! Caroline Ross sent me here. Lewis Hyde's book The Gift helped me to understand the ways the gift economy works. (I quote him in my essay about the gift economy, here: https://rosiewhinray.substack.com/p/sharers-not-owners) Basically he says that the gift economy and the money economy are uneasy bedfellows because they operate by entirely different rules. The cardinal property of the gift is that it keeps moving.
Art and Magic are both gift economy practices, which is why they don't mix well with commerce. (e.g. that's why it feels weird to charge money for writing.)
I live in Aotearoa- in Polynesia- so gift-ways are culturally embedded here. Money being taboo is interesting. There IS something 'wrong' about money; but maybe it's just that it crowds out other ways of being, and makes people unable to express their humanity in the traditional way- that is, through intrinsically motivated, altruistic action, creating webs of reciprocity.
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!
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I am doing a review of the Substacks I can support financially so I will consider a paid subscription. I really value your writing and your work more generally. I guess I feel comfortable sharing this online: last month during a concert in Manchester I felt that God was telling me, very definitely, that it was time to "come home," as it were, by joining a church (after 10 years of being away). This has been a long road, there have been other significant moments there that I probably ignored. Your work has played a role in that journey for me. I went to church last Sunday and I am committed to rediscovering Jesus. I'm so grateful for your work and the work of many others out there. Thanks for being vulnerable. Money is a tough subject.
Oh gosh thank you for sharing this. X
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
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.
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.
Thank you Elizabeth! Caroline Ross sent me here. Lewis Hyde's book The Gift helped me to understand the ways the gift economy works. (I quote him in my essay about the gift economy, here: https://rosiewhinray.substack.com/p/sharers-not-owners) Basically he says that the gift economy and the money economy are uneasy bedfellows because they operate by entirely different rules. The cardinal property of the gift is that it keeps moving.
Art and Magic are both gift economy practices, which is why they don't mix well with commerce. (e.g. that's why it feels weird to charge money for writing.)
I live in Aotearoa- in Polynesia- so gift-ways are culturally embedded here. Money being taboo is interesting. There IS something 'wrong' about money; but maybe it's just that it crowds out other ways of being, and makes people unable to express their humanity in the traditional way- that is, through intrinsically motivated, altruistic action, creating webs of reciprocity.
Gosh this is so interesting thank you