Ever Thought of Stewardship as Spiritual Practice?
In the summer worship of 2018 we described many different forms of spiritual practice here at Unitarian Society of Hartford (USH) – Buddhist meditation, Tai Chi, art, self-compassion, connecting, and Small Group ministry. One spiritual practice we didn’t talk about is Spiritual Stewardship.
What, you say? What I do with my money is a spiritual practice? Yes, and to paraphrase Joe Dominguez, YOUR MONEY IS YOUR LIFE ENERGY. Think about that – our money is our life energy. So, how we earn it and how we spend it is essential to our core meaning making about life, that is, one of our spiritual practices.
All of our Unitarian Universalist Principles help guide our lives toward being a loving person who brings more good than harm to ourselves and others and to the world overall. How we make money, save money, spend money, invest money and give away money during our lives and after we die might all be guided by these Principles just as how we spend our time and manage our relationships might reflect these same values.
USH is a living community much like a small service business. In order to provide spiritual or meaning making services, it takes money to hire staff to minister worship and to give pastoral care as needed, staff to lead music, staff to plan and execute RE, staff to administer the office and keep the books, staff to clean the building and do repairs, to pay the oil and light bills, to mow the grass, to plow the snow, and money to buy supplies for programs. So when we talk at USH about giving money, raising money, pledging money, and leaving a legacy gift we are talking about life’s essential goodness in the most concrete of ways. And we all say, “Money talks”. Our UU principles aren’t so much to be believed in, they are to be lived in which means we try to walk our talk.
But you say, you don’t have any discretionary money so spiritual stewardship doesn’t apply to you. Sure it does, because your time spent, your services given to USH are also part of spiritual stewardship practice. It all adds up. ~Blessings be, Marye Gail Harrison, Chair Spiritual Life USH Board