THE WI$DOM PATH: MONEY, SPIRIT, AND LIFE
A Tapestry of Faith Program for Adults
WORKSHOP 1: TALKING ABOUT MONEY
BY PATRICIA HALL INFANTE AND DAVID H. MESSNER; DEVELOPMENTAL EDITOR: GAIL FORSYTH-VAIL
© Copyright 2013 Unitarian Universalist Association.
Published to the Web on 9/30/2014 12:00:50 AM PST.
This program and additional resources are available on the UUA.org web site at
www.uua.org/religiouseducation/curricula/tapestryfaith.
WORKSHOP OVERVIEW
INTRODUCTION
The importance of money flows from it being a link between the present and the future. — John Maynard Keynes, British economist (1883-1946)
The Wi$dom Path program taps a willingness to develop a greater awareness of one's past experiences and behaviors with regard to money and one's feelings and values associated with that history. This workshop begins the exploration by asking: Why is it important to talk about money? Participants think about the meaning of money and the ways one's personal money issues can be a factor in living a fulfilling life. They consider the variety and complexity of individual and social dimensions of our relationships with money. Participants develop a productive way of being together to explore money issues. They begin to develop an intellectual framework for subsequent learning and a crucial emotional foundation on which to continue individual and interpersonal reflective work.
Before leading this workshop, review the accessibility guidelines in the program Introduction under Integrating All Participants.
GOALS
This workshop will:
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
Participants will:
WORKSHOP-AT-A-GLANCE
Activity | Minutes |
Opening | 10 |
Activity 1: Program Overview and Expectations | 10 |
Activity 2: Forming Our Covenant Together | 10 |
Activity 3: Names for Money | 15 |
Activity 4: The Functions of Money | 15 |
Activity 5: Money Stories | 15 |
Faith in Action: Money in the Public Square | |
Closing | 15 |
Alternate Activity 1: Spectrum Exercises | 15 |
SPIRITUAL PREPARATION
Reflect on your own relationship to money issues. This exercise will sharpen your awareness of and sensitivity to issues raised with and by the participants and, thus, help you effectively facilitate this program. Use these guide questions:
If you wish to reflect in more detail before this workshop, complete the Taking It Home activity you will assign the group during this workshop's Closing.
WORKSHOP PLAN
OPENING (10 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
Greet each participant at the door and welcome them to the workshop. Invite each person to sign in, prepare a name tag, and find a place to sit in the circle.
When everyone has arrived, stop the music and welcome participants. Sound the chime. Invite participants into quiet reflection as you prepare to enter into a time of centering and sharing. Emphasize that your purpose in being together is to support one another in spiritual and faith development in a way that is both challenging and joyful!
Invite a participant to light the chalice, as you share these words:
We light this chalice in the spirit of the love that calls us together;
for the care that we commit to show one another;
and in the hope that we are mindful and deliberate
in the journey we undertake together today.
Lead Responsive Reading 660 in Singing the Living Tradition, "To Live Deliberately" by Unitarian Henry David Thoreau. Read aloud the words in plain type and indicate for participants to respond with the words in italics.
If you have chosen to use a talking item, introduce it now. Explain that it will be passed to the one who is speaker as a reminder to focus on the one speaking rather than engaging in side conversations, interrupting, or planning one's own next words. Go around the circle (passing the talking item, if you are using one) and give each person a chance to introduce themselves with their name, the name of their favorite song about money, and why that song resonates with them.
Sound the chime to signal the end of this centering time.
ACTIVITY 1: PROGRAM OVERVIEW AND EXPECTATIONS (10 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
Distribute the handout you prepared using Leader Resource 1. Briefly introduce The Wi$dom Path, offering a "headline" for each workshop your program will include. Pause after naming each workshop for questions or comments. Have a co-facilitator or volunteer capture questions or areas for deeper, future exploration on the newsprint "parking lot." A co-facilitator should keep the newsprint so you will be able to return to and address items later in the program.
ACTIVITY 2: FORMING OUR COVENANT TOGETHER (10 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
Explain "covenant" with these or similar words:
A covenant is a mutual promise to one another. We agree to a way of being together as the foundation of our group relationships. At the root of all of our covenants with each other is our commitment to the first Unitarian Universalist Principle, the inherent worth dignity of each one of us. A group covenant makes explicit our promises to one another, ensuring that we have a safe and productive space in which to do our work together and serving to hold us as a community of faith and a community of learners.
Call attention to the sample covenant you have posted. Invite a volunteer to read each element. Ask the group if they have any questions or concerns about the points of the sample covenant.
Ask if there are any other elements that should be added to make people feel safe and to support an effective group experience. Write each suggested addition on newsprint and invite discussion, modifying as appropriate. Say that as the program goes forward, the group can and should check in about how covenant guidelines are working in the group and whether any additional guidelines need to be added.
When agreement is evident, ask the group to adopt the covenant by consensus. Commit to keeping the covenant posted throughout the program.
ACTIVITY 3: NAMES FOR MONEY (15 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
Introduce the activity, saying:
The language we use to talk about money reflects our assumptions and experience. Our language about money can influence the tone and direction of any conversation. Let's begin by brainstorming all the terms we can think of for money.
Lead the brainstorm by going around the circle and inviting each participant to give one word for "money" (from proper English, slang English, or another language that they use) while your co-facilitator or scribe writes it on newsprint. Let people know it is fine to pass if they can't think of a word. After two times around the circle, open it up for people to shout out words in any order ("popcorn" style). If the group has difficulty generating examples or has not included cultural variety in their brainstormed list, supplement with examples from Leader Resource 3, Some Names for Money, and then ask for additional words. After the ideas are exhausted, ask the group to take a minute to reflect on the range of expressions generated. Lead a reflection and discussion time. Allow a few responses to each question:
ACTIVITY 4: THE FUNCTIONS OF MONEY (15 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
Distribute handout and introduce the activity, saying: "Money serves many purposes in our lives, some obvious and some more subtle. The handout lists a number of them." Invite volunteers to read aloud the roles and purposes section of the handout and invite comments and observations.
Then, invite different volunteers to read each of the three quotes representing a perspective on money in the handout. After each quote is read, ask for examples of how money has served the function that quote names, in participants' lives. You may want to use your own brief examples as a model. Ask:
Keep discussion brief and fluid, allowing a few examples in each area. To end discussion, re-state that money acts as a vehicle for reallocating value, exercising power, and expressing personal meaning.
Then, ask:
Give each participant a chance to identify one example mentioned in the group and explore briefly why it is spiritual or theological for them.
ACTIVITY 5: MONEY STORIES (15 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
Explain that you will share excerpts from personal money stories told by members of the UUA President's Council. Distribute the handout. Note that the stories selected are only a few examples; they do not represent the full diversity of experiences and money stories among UU leaders, UUs in general, or participants in this workshop.
Invite participants to take note of parts of the stories that catch their attention. Distribute paper and pens to participants who wish to take notes.
Invite volunteers to read the stories you have selected. Allow a pause between each story for participants to process and reflect. Lead a discussion using these questions:
CLOSING (15 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
Distribute Handout 3 and say:
At the next workshop, you will be invited to share some of your personal money story.
Invite participants to take a moment to read the instructions on the handout. Answer any questions. Emphasize that the structure of their autobiography and which story from it they will share aloud are up to them. Suggest participants may wish to use the personal reflections in Handout 2, Money Stories, as models for developing their financial autobiographies.
Invite participants to join hands in a circle, and then to name one meaningful insight, idea, or gratitude they will carry with them from this time together. Share Reading 684 from Singing the Living Tradition. Extinguish the chalice.
FAITH IN ACTION: MONEY IN THE PUBLIC SQUARE
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
Attend a public meeting where a significant local, state, or national program or policy will be discussed. Bring journals and pens, and collect a printed agenda at the meeting. Reflect on these questions during the meeting, making note of your observations:
Gather at another time after the public meeting to share your observations and insights. Consider whether and how the public process could be changed to engage the money issues you identified in a more productive way.
LEADER REFLECTION AND PLANNING
Make a time for individual reflection and discussion with your co-facilitator after the conclusion of the first workshop. Consider these questions:
ALTERNATE ACTIVITY 1: SPECTRUM EXERCISE (15 MINUTES)
Materials for Activity
Preparation for Activity
Description of Activity
Say that this activity will explore participants' feelings and preferences on some themes related to money and wealth. Emphasize that the purposes of the activity are to reflect while having some fun and to get to know each other.
Explain that you will offer pairs of phrases. Indicate which end of the room participants should move to if they agree with the first phrase of the pair and which end for the second phrase. Say that participants can also place themselves along the continuum to represent a position that is somewhere in between.
Read the pairs aloud and invite participants to place themselves along the continuum. Do not offer explanation of the meaning or intention of word pairs; instead, allow for personal interpretation. Reassure the participants that there are no wrong answers and that it is fine to be standing apart from the group.
Each time people arrange themselves in response to a prompt, take a moment to notice patterns and ask the group to do the same. Ask if anyone would like to say just a few words about their position and any challenges or surprises related to where they have placed, or found, themselves.
To conclude the exercise, lift-up the diversity of experience that has been revealed in the group. Affirm the value of the different starting points for the future workshops and your work together.
Including All Participants
Adapt the space or the activity to accommodate participants who have limited mobility or difficulty standing for extended periods of time or who use assistive devices. Ensure the area for the exercise is clear and open to allow wheelchair access. You may invite a stationary participant to raise a hand or have a partner move by proxy to indicate where the participant wishes to place themself. You can place chairs at intervals across the open space for participants to sit and rest.
THE WI$DOM PATH: MONEY, SPIRIT, AND LIFE: WORKSHOP 1:
HANDOUT 1: PERSPECTIVES ON ROLE AND PURPOSE OF MONEY
Some purposes and roles assigned to money:
In all of its roles, money can be used in morally positive and morally negative ways.
AN ECONOMIC PERSPECTIVE
From "Of the Origin and Use of Money" by Adam Smith in An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (at www.econlib.org/library/Smith/smWN.html) (London: Methuen & Co., Ltd.,1904)
Adam Smith articulated the way that money is a necessary tool for reallocating things of value between people who do specialized work, making it possible to exchange the surplus of one person's efforts for the surplus of another's and for each to meet their broader needs and desires within a social system.
When the division of labour has been once thoroughly established, it is but a very small part of a man's wants which the produce of his own labour can supply. He supplies the far greater part of them by exchanging that surplus part of the produce of his own labour, which is over and above his own consumption, for such parts of the produce of other men's labour as he has occasion for. Every man thus lives by exchanging, or becomes in some measure a merchant, and the society itself grows to be what is properly a commercial society.
... every prudent man in every period of society, after the first establishment of the division of labour, must naturally have endeavoured to manage his affairs in such a manner, as to have at all times by him, besides the peculiar produce of his own industry, a certain quantity of some one commodity or other, such as he imagined few people would be likely to refuse in exchange for the produce of their industry.
A SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE
From "The Sociology of Money" by Wayne E. Baker and Jason B. Jimerson, The American Behavioral Scientist, July/August 1992
... Money takes fewer forms but has more "uses" in the sociological conception. Economists focus only on the limited bundle of impersonal and neutral traits conferred by market integration: a medium of exchange, a means of payment, a store of value, a unit of account, and a standard for deferred payment... Sociologists recognize such money uses but consider a much broader range, especially the use of money as power... Weber (1922/1978) ... emphasized control and power in economic action: "Money prices," he argues, "are the product of conflicts of interest and compromises; they thus result from power constellations...
A PSYCHOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE
From The Psychology of Money by Adrian Furnham (Michael Argyle, 1998)
... There are probably two rather different fairy tales associated with money. The one is that money and riches are deserts for a good life. Further, this money should be enjoyed and spent wisely for the betterment of all. The other story is of the ruthless destroyer of others who sacrifices love and happiness for money and eventually gets it but finds it is of no use to him/her. Hence all they can do is give it away with the same fanaticism with which they first amassed it....
Money is, in and of itself, inert. But everywhere it becomes empowered with special meanings, imbued with special powers. Psychologists are interested in attitudes towards money, why and how people behave as they do towards money, as well as what effect money has on human relations.
THE WI$DOM PATH: MONEY, SPIRIT, AND LIFE: WORKSHOP 1:
HANDOUT 2: MONEY STORIES
These personal reflections on money and wealth were selected after a facilitated conversation among Unitarian Universalist leaders who serve on the President's Council.
1ST REFLECTION
I grew up on a farm, so my parents were self-employed. The issue of working hard was always very important. I was the first in my family to go to college, so I had an image of myself as a professional woman. I also got my master's degree. I was working and then had children. I worked full time until our second child was born and then I worked part time. After about a year it became obvious to me that it was difficult to handle the children and the household and hold down a job which I was not making a lot of money at because I was doing social work at the time but also had to pay for day care. [My husband's] travel was picking up and so we made the decision that I would stop working.
Not having a paycheck really changed my perspective of who I was. I began to ask what the value of my work really was if I was not earning a paycheck. Because for some reason I had always measured myself that way—just the fact of having a paycheck. So I always felt the work I did with the children and volunteering work had to make up for the paycheck I wasn't bringing into the family. Fast forward a few years and now our daughters have graduated from high school. The question for me became: I am not doing that work anymore of raising the family and holding the household together, do I go back to work? What is the value of what I have been doing over the last eighteen years?
Our income had changed dramatically; we were at a point where I did not have to go back to work to make a financial contribution. We were doing fine. So I really had an opportunity to look at what I wanted to do with my life—was that paycheck that important or were there other ways I could use my life and my talents to give back in a way I wouldn't if I went out and found a job.
2ND REFLECTION
I grew up in a small town, the fifth of ten children for an American Baptist minister—so with essentially no money. When I was in first grade all the boys played marbles at recess. They always played keepsies, which means you brought your own marbles and if you played and lost, you lost your marble. Then you could buy a bag of ten new marbles for 20 cents. What would happen with boys is that the marbles would fall out of their pockets in classes. The teachers would pick them up and give them to the janitor. The janitor ended up with thousands of marbles and he would resell them for a penny a piece, used marbles. So at recess, if you wanted, you could just pay a penny, get yourself a marble, and you could play.
... Over the next two years I played marbles all the time, every recess. I started to accumulate a very large marbles collection. I decided to undercut the janitor and offer two marbles per penny. By the time I finished third grade I had not only established myself firmly with my peer group as the marble king, I had put $18 dollars in the bank from marble sales, had three years of spending money, and was able to give my younger brothers thousands of marbles they could keep for their own collection. This is when I decided you don't have to start with nothing and stay with nothing. There are ways to move somewhere else.
3RD REFLECTION
I began to think about how it had flowed across the generations in my family and I thought about my mother's side. Her forebears were fairly successful New York merchants and did very well. And on my father's side there was a long history of being doctors and lawyers and they did moderately well. And then as classically is the case for so many, the Depression came along and largely wiped out the New York merchant family. And with that came a great deal of hardship for my grandmother and her children. When it came time to decide whether or not the kids—my mother and her brother—would go to college, it turned out that the brother being a male and it being those days was the one who go to go to college and my mother who was clearly the brighter of the two did not. The result was that he wasted his college years and she was frustrated for many years afterwards.
My parents, respecting money a great deal, were very careful with it. And that led to our being able to enjoy ourselves because they made things possible for us that they denied to themselves.
In my own life I've been very comfortable money-wise. And I've had money to spend when I needed it. Uncle Sam came forward just in time when I got out of the service to help me go to graduate school. And after that my legal career has been sufficiently remunerative to not hurt for money. However I find money a difficult commodity to come by in the life I've increasingly begun to lead, which is to try to start things that I think are important. And I have spent much of the past forty years trying to initiate projects that I thought have meaning for society, putting my own money into them but trying very hard to try to persuade others that their money should be directed in that fashion. So for me, money is partly priming the pump and partly trying to induce others to attach the same value that I do to a project and devote their resources accordingly. So I spend a great deal of time thinking about money because these causes are important to me and it will take money to make them happen.
4TH REFLECTION
In my family of origin we started also with very little. By the time I was an early teenager my parents had saved up a little bit of money but then my grandfather developed Parkinson's disease and had to go to a nursing home. My father called his brother and sister. His brother had virtually no capacity to help out, his sister did but wouldn't, so the financial burden really fell to my parents to help pay for the nursing home. They almost went bankrupt as a result of this and it was not until the month before my grandfather died that they realized there was a federal program out there, Medicaid, which would have helped him. There was no way to recapture the money they had spent to help my grandfather so they were basically starting from scratch when my brother and I went to college. It was a real struggle for them for a long, long time. The lesson I took from this was that no matter what you have, you still need a cushion on top of what you think you might need. It is not that you can never have enough, but you have to be really careful. And also it is important to look for other sources of revenue that might be available to you if you run into a hard spot.
5TH REFLECTION
My father worked in a bank so I understood money, at least as a child can understand money. We got an allowance we had to make that allowance last all month. We were taught to budget, to make that twenty-five cents last. As a grown-up I think one of the most important things is, we read Your Money or Your Life several years ago, we read it together and we tried to really look at where our values were and where our time was going in terms of money. It was life changing in a lot of ways because we could see what we valued. Another moment I remember is a few years ago. I am sort of semi-retired now so investments are important and we all know what happened in 2008. I support a woman through Women International and I said, "Oh, I can't do this anymore." I just laughed at myself because it is $350 a year and I definitely have $350 a year to put one of these women in the program even after 2008. So I felt like a shift happened to me. I kind of joked "I am through being cheap." I am trying to be more generous even with people I know that don't have means.
6TH REFLECTION
I grew up on the margins of the middle class. The marginal part came from the fact that my parents divorced when I was 5, back in 1947 when divorce was not so common. My father was a newspaperman—which I grew up to be—and he was paid squat. My mother got the house and there was not enough money with my father's consistent child support to keep the house, so she rented rooms to women. This is postwar when there was a housing shortage and I grew up in a house of women, which was interesting. And when I got old enough to start earning money, the money went to my mother no matter. I worked at various jobs, I did not get paid much, but it helped. And that continued through my early professional life because my grandmother moved in with us and then she got sick. This was before coherent health insurance, and I lived at home the first year and a half of my newspaper career. Essentially I gave my salary to pay my grandmother's medical bills.
The thing that made us marginally middle class is that both of my parents went to college, so you get the values without the money.... The message I internalized was scarcity and pain, watching my mother trying to get the bills paid and the struggles she had... .Money made me squirm most of my life... I have gotten past my discomfort but it is still not the favorite part of my life. I have struggled to become very responsible about saving and investing and making sure that all my insurance is place and all the things you need to do to be a responsible adult, but it didn't come easy for me.
THE WI$DOM PATH: MONEY, SPIRIT, AND LIFE: WORKSHOP 1:
HANDOUT 3: TAKING IT HOME: OUR PERSONAL FINANCIAL HISTORIES AND IDENTITIES
The importance of money flows from it being a link between the present and the future. — John Maynard Keynes, British economist (1883-1946)
We all encounter the extraordinary in the ordinary. It happens all the time. But caught up in the demands of our daily lives, we too often fail to take the time to see the extraordinary, to envision it in a story, or to open ourselves to the possibility of mystery. — Nancy Lamb in The Art and Craft of Storytelling
Prior to the next workshop, take time to reflect on your personal financial history and identity. Prepare a financial autobiography in written form with emphasis on its spiritual dimensions, and prepare to share excerpts from your autobiography aloud in the next workshop.
While the structure of the autobiography, how you tell your story, is up to you, you are invited to consider:
THE WI$DOM PATH: MONEY, SPIRIT, AND LIFE: WORKSHOP 1:
LEADER RESOURCE 1: THE WISDOM PATH: PROGRAM OVERVIEW
THE WI$DOM PATH: MONEY, SPIRIT, AND LIFE: WORKSHOP 1:
LEADER RESOURCE 2: SAMPLE COVENANT
Previously published on the UUA website as "Community Covenant: For Use in Lifespan Faith Development Settings with Adults or Youth," attributed to the Spiritual Eldering Institute and used with permission.
THE WI$DOM PATH: MONEY, SPIRIT, AND LIFE: WORKSHOP 1:
LEADER RESOURCE 3: SOME NAMES FOR MONEY
Benjamins | Dough | Moolah |
Bones | Dosh | Plaster |
Bread | Ducats | Rocks |
Bucks | Gelt | Scratch |
Cabbage | Glad Wealth | Shekels |
Candy | Greenbacks | Simoleons |
Cheddar | Lettuce | Sugar |
Clams | Long green | Tin |
Coin | Loot | Wampum |
Cush | Lucre | Welcome Green |
Dead Presidents | Mazuma | Wonger |
THE WI$DOM PATH: MONEY, SPIRIT, AND LIFE: WORKSHOP 1:
LEADER RESOURCE 4: SPECTRUM EXERCISE PROMPTS
Money is...
A Big Part of My Life / Not Important to Me
Related to my Faith / Unrelated to My Faith
The Root of All Evil / A Tool for Good
Connected to Things of Value / Disconnected from What's Real
Necessary in Church / Better Left Outside the Church
An Attachment to Get Past / A Resource to Be Embraced
I am...
Happy to Talk about Money / Unhappy to Talk About Money
Rich / Poor
Generous with Money / Miserly with Money
In Control of My Money / Subject to Control by My Money
Financially Sophisticated / Financially Naﶥ
A Worrier About Money / Carefree About Money
FIND OUT MORE
Baker, Wayne E. and Jason B. Jimerson. "The Sociology of Money (at webuser.bus.umich.edu/wayneb/pdfs/sociology/sociology%20of%20money.pdf)" The American Behavioral Scientist 35,6 (Jul/Aug 1992)
Furnham, Adrian. The Psychology of Money (New York: Routledge, 1998)
Smith, Adam, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (at www.econlib.org/library/Smith/smWN.html), Edwin Cannan, ed. (London: Methuen & Co., Ltd.,1904)