Dear saints,
Last year I was part of a multi-month learning cohort on money and the church. Not everyone’s idea of a fun time, you might think, but it offered me a precious opportunity to write a letter to my children. The invitation was to articulate for them what money means to me and what it means to me to give it away. It was a surprisingly rich experience. I had never before strung together the experiences in my life that had shaped my relationship to money: from scarcity, to fear, to sacrifice, to the freedom that came in re-ordering my priorities toward giving first. Yet it was more than my story. In the letter I found myself wanting to pass on values that I knew wouldn’t come to them in economics class or by a trip to the shopping mall. I wanted to tell them the gift there is in seeing money as a gift — something that is intended to be given over for others as indeed we are intended to be. In other words, I wanted to tell my children what was on my heart in relation to money. In this season of our generosity, as we recall for one another the stories of how we give courageously, I invite you not only to make your pledge to All Saints’ but to talk to someone else about its significance when you do. Who knows what your story of giving might gift to another?
Thank you for all the ways you bless others.
Peace,
Simon+
