Wednesday 16 August 2006

Money, money, money!

I went to one of those seminars last night about how to make buckets of money trading shares at home. It was quite fascinating really. Christians (of my ilk any way) have all sorts of curious guilt feelings about the theology of money.
At least the presenter was pretty upfront...what are the two motivating factors he asks? And the obedient responses form the audience....Fear and Greed!!
This does not sit well with either my Puritanism or my Catholicism, even though both have been able to rationalise the pursuit of wealth as a goal in itself at different times. It did well, however, to remind me that the love of money is indeed a slippery slope going in the opposite direction....by and large to the one I enjoy and want to go in.
One of the troubles is that I just don't care enough about money. Maybe I should. At times this has made life difficult, though my basic stance remains the same.....I can think of better things to do with my time than to scrutinise my portfolio.
Is this a flaw, a weakness? Am I a poor steward? Maybe I can only even muse like this because I am one of the lucky ones. I am ever conscious of the fact that there are many people who don't have anything like the choices that I and my family do in matters of: healthcare, education, holidays, housing....and so on. It is true of Australia as a whole. But we in Australia are vastly more wealthy, even in our poorest manifestations, than much of the world. Our own fear and greed often prevent us from seeing this, to my mind, quite obvious reality

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