Money Is a River That Runs Through it All

Every summer, our grandsons spend a week at the day camp hosted by my wife’s congregation. This year, one of their projects focused on generosity. Each child decorated a jar with construction paper, markers, and enough glitter to coat half the house. Their assignment was to fill the jar with spare change during the week. On Friday, every coin would be collected in a kiddie-pool-sized offering plate to help feed hungry people in our community.

On Friday morning’s drive to camp, I decided to stir the pot.

“You know,” I said, “instead of giving all that money away, we could keep it. We could go get ice cream.”

I told myself I was creating a teachable moment, a brief Socratic conversation about generosity. But another part of me had already decided what flavor I wanted.

My youngest grandson didn’t hesitate.

“Opa, no! That’s for hungry people.”

“Besides,” the older one interjected, “we can get ice cream on our own.”

Kids these days!

We usually think of money as an object. Coins. Bills. Numbers on a bank statement. These are illusions that suggest a thing, when in fact money is not a noun. Money should be a verb. We don’t have money because it is currency. A word that comes from the Latin currere, meaning “to run,” as in A River Runs Through It. A currency is something that flows. The word evokes movement. Currency is on the move, like a stream.

Electricity is useful when it flows as a current. A battery stores energy, but nothing happens until a circuit is completed and current flows.

Money behaves in similar ways.

Money has potential, but its power lies in movement as it flows from customer to merchant or from donor to charity. Our entire economic system depends on countless invisible currents flowing through society. When those currents stop, economies slide into recession. The current is no longer flowing. Is this why we use terms like cash flow, income stream, and liquidity? Our financial vocabulary assumes movement.

This flow reminds us that money is really about connection.

And like electricity, we never actually see the current. We only witness its effects.

Most of us were taught that civilization began with barter, then coins, and eventually paper money and electronic banking. Anthropologist David Graeber argues that credit and social obligation came first. Long before people exchanged coins, they kept records of who owed what to whom. Money began not as a thing but as a relationship.

Coins appeared later. The first may have been struck in ancient Mesopotamia as far back as four thousand years ago, with standardized coins in Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey) by the seventh century BCE, and paper money emerging in China around a thousand years ago. In short order, people realized they could borrow or lend this currency to others, based on trust. This might be why the word credit evolved from its root, credo, meaning “I believe.” Ah, you might see where I’m going with this essay.

Credit has evolved from trade routes across Africa’s savannas to shipping across oceans to the modern computer transfer of vast sums of money. The typical American now carries a statement of their creditworthiness in a wallet or purse. My own bank, The Washington Trust Company, has a statement of faith in its very name.

Today, as physical cash gives way to credit cards, smartphones, and digital transfers, money is becoming increasingly abstract. Perhaps we are simply returning to where it began. For most of history, money has been built on trust, relationships, and shared agreements.

Which is another way of saying that money is symbolic.

A paycheck is never just a paycheck. It represents security, status, sacrifice, freedom, identity, or love. Learning what a coworker earns can evoke emotions beyond the number itself. Financial decisions are rarely just about math. They touch something much deeper.

“Money is a descendant of those things early peoples deemed treasure, mana, fetish, what was perceived to have magical or talismanic properties, or was suitable as an offering to the gods or God,” writes Kathleen Martin in The Book of Symbols (2018). Ancient coins often featured a god, goddess, or animal on one side. This practice evolved into depicting images of political rulers, for example, the Roman emperor Julius Caesar, who was thought to possess divine qualities.

We have not outgrown this. Even today, money seems to make things happen. It’s not the money itself but the mutually agreed-upon value it represents, whether that be an evening meal, a college education, or the construction of a new home. Psychologist James Hillman argued that money carries enormous psychological projections. In our soul’s treasury, he writes, are “deposits of mythical fantasies and imaginal possibilities” (James Hillman, Soul and Money, Spring Publ., 1982, 37).

Morgan Housel makes a similar observation from a different angle: each of us develops our understanding of money through our life experiences. Our financial habits are shaped less by spreadsheets than by childhood memories, family stories, periods of abundance, and moments of scarcity. (The Psychology of Money, Harriman House, 2020)

Have you ever heard the phrase, “It’s not about the money”? Hmmm, it usually is, but it’s also about more than money.

All of this ties back to my credo. Whether we like it or not, everyone has faith. By this, I mean we trust in the divine, the one that makes all things possible… yes, money. In the US, our currency bears the phrase “In God We Trust.” Am I alone in finding that interesting?

Jesus of Nazareth seems curious about money as well. Nearly half his parables address the topic. When asked about paying taxes, he responded, “Give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s” (Mark 12:17). He answered a question with a question, playing Aikido with those intent on trapping him, like a modern-day TV debate specialist. Elsewhere, he is considerably less diplomatic.

And then there is that scene in John’s gospel in which Jesus expresses righteous indignation at the economic injustice of the moneychangers.

Notice that none of this condemns money itself. Instead, there seems to be concern about direction or flow. Where is the current taking us now? Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. Money reveals allegiance because it goes somewhere.

So, if money is a current, where does it flow?

Most of us direct it in four basic directions.

We save it.

We spend it.

We owe it.

And we give it.

Giving it away feels like a different flow. We’re not expecting anything in return. OK, maybe gratitude or a thank-you note. We give not for repayment but to foster relationships. Every offering, donation, and act of kindness shows money becoming something greater. Compassion, Well-being, Love.

My grandson wasn’t focused on his purchasing power. He saw hungry people. He’s never worried about a mortgage or bills. Perhaps with life experience, his anxiety about money may grow. But he might also learn to enjoy the ride on the current of generosity.

Money always flows. Hopefully, the currency moves in ways that generate life.

Here’s the link to this week’s video

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Previously Published on The Notebooks of James Hazelwood and is republished on Medium.

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Photo credit: iStock