What about money?
The first years of our life are full of certainty. When we are born, we seek our mother, most of us find her. We rest our head on her chest and occasionally we feed from her body. We bask in the certainty that she is always there for us. She gives us what we need, when we need it. No questions asked. Her care for us, driven by an instinctive and free love, is a true and quantifiable measure of how much she loves us. Full attention, as much and as long as we require it.
That is how we start our lives, until someone else comes to disturb this perfect harmony. Our father sometimes, but that is almost never an unsurmountable obstacle. We still get our needs fulfilled. We still get the necessary attention. Then one day, we see another little one coming from nowhere to share our mother with us. The serenity of having everything and all attention takes a serious blow. Our understanding of the absolute love that our mother have for us is no longer as crisp and clear. It remains quantifiable, as we continue to receive the food, hugs, and kisses, but it is only half of what it used to be, at best!
As kids, a simple question keeps coming back to our minds: does our mom love us half of what she used to before? A question to which we remain without a clear answer.
As time goes by, with more people in our circle of love, the ambiguity of the answer to any question related to love, increases significantly.
“I love you”, “we love you”. As soon as we hear these statements, we immediately ask ourselves and sometimes the people declaring their love to us: “how much?” We never reach a satisfying answer. It is always ambiguous. Uncertain. Can we rest our head on your chest for as long as we want? Would you give us what we need, anytime, all the time? Would you stop doing anything else to take care of us? Would you dedicate most of your days to make sure we are happy? How much do you really love us? An extremely difficult question, that will always give place to an ambiguous answer.
How to remove the ambiguity? How to quantify the seemingly unquantifiable? A life-long quest that lead us to two outcomes. Each of them in its own way is about adding a deal of certainty to our unpredictable life. These two outcomes rarely co-exist. When they do, one is often dominated by the other.
Ambiguity is a human feeling. We experience it as we interact with our changing world. So, it becomes clear to us that the only place where we could find certainty and remove ambiguity is in the immutable.
What’s more immutable than the essence of the soul, the intangible spirit? What you cannot touch, you cannot change! What’s more immutable than a loving God? What’s more certain than the love of God?
We have faith in their loving existence. We pledge our life and our love to them. We fully trust our belief in their goodness. They love us back eternally. They are always here to listen. They stop everything to care for us, or actually they don’t need to stop anything, because they can do all things at the same time. They are as certain as our faith in them is. We cannot fathom them betraying us; it is like we are betraying ourselves. They are our way out of the uncertainty in life. They are the unambiguous answer to the question: “how much do you love us?”. They love us more than we need, as much as we want, and forever.
Then one day, your child asks you:
“how much do you love me?”
“I love you as much as humans can love another one. Even more. I love you as much as God loves each of us”.
“What would God do for you out of their love?”
“Everything in their power!”
“God have unlimited power, no?”
“yes, they do.”
“Would God keep you next to me, as long as I live?”
“Would they take away the pain from your body?”
“Would they heal you when you are ailing?”
“Would they give us the means to get out of our miserable life?”
“Would they bring our family back together?”
“Would they put all the chances on our side in this uncertain life?”
“Would they help us to be all we could be, have children, love them, and provide them with what they need?”
The love of God is a great thing. Few people live the real version of it. But even for those who do, it is not enough to answer all life questions.
The love of God is as eternal as God can be in our faith. However, life as we know it, sometimes takes us to places where God, who love without ambiguity, is put in question. And as a consequence, there is no more certainty in anything related to love, even in its most eternal form, divine love. Jesus and others like him discovered this painful feeling. In a rather desperate attempt to restore the faith in God, and the certainty of their love to us, Jesus said: “no one can serve two masters. You cannot serve both God and money”. As unfortunate as it can be, this hazardous statement has had the exact opposite effect on people. It made them look for the certainty and the clarity of the other master, not God. People's passion, determination and perseverance in their pursuit and commitment to the second master has hugely surpassed any quest for God and their love.
When I say I have $100, there no ambiguity in that statement. There is a fundamental certainty. I own $100, and I can do with it what pleases me. Unlike love, money holds much less interpretation, or none at all. You have it or you don’t. When you have it, you can count it and count on it. You know exactly how much of it you have. The more you have, the more you can aspire to have. You know what it can bring you. Basically, anything you can pay for, which is almost everything. Maybe not the cure to cancer or another incurable decease, but excluding this, it brings you everything else. It provides you with choices, a sense of freedom, security, authority, clout and very often it brings you love, as most people know it. It fulfils all you worldly desires. More importantly it offers you all of these exactly when you decide to have them, without any ambiguity and with the highest degree of certainty anyone can hope for in this essentially uncertain world.
The two masters are eternal. They are both powerful by one measure or another. None of them can take away the malediction of a deadly decease or the shadow of a certain death. But nonetheless they remain fundamentally strong, as much as they are different. The truth of their dominance is not just in their eternity and power. It is in something else closer to our daily lives. The dominance of one master over the other lies in the absence of ambiguity in its essence, and in the removal of uncertainty by its presence.
The first master, God, is available to all, and it is a way of being. Its existence is deeply linked to the way we feel, to our unsettling ambiguity about our existence, and to our anxious uncertainty about our purpose. We are born not knowing why we are here, and where we are going. Then we are told, let your heart be your guide. Let love lead you to your happiness and peace of mind. Our newborn and early childhood experience have programmed us to believe that love can be the way. So, we follow the path of love! Then for most of us, at some point in our life, when the reality of worldly things catches up with us, this wisdom becomes a very losing proposition. It becomes: “uncertainty is leading ambiguity to a painful disillusion!”
The other master, money, is accessible to a few, and it is a way of having. We define its existence. We create it with our will, work and intelligence. It obeys us. It does what we expect it to do. It gives us back the effort we put into it. If you lose it, you can get it back. It depends mainly on you to keep it and grow it. You serve it but it also serves you. You own it, and it is up to you not let it own you. There is not much ambiguity about its power and worth. Either you own it or you don’t, with much higher certainty than whether you are loved or you aren’t.
It seems like there is not much of a dilemma or a debate. Where is our joy? Where is our peace of mind? What about God? What about money? Maybe the answer is not that obvious… Think about it! Or better still, feel it!