What We Earn, Financial Makeovers, and Self-Worth

I remember devouring Parade magazine’s annual “What People Earn” cover story as a kid. A vending machine owner in Tennessee earns $69,000 a year. An VP of product design for the official hat maker for the Kentucky Derby makes $105,000. How did that compare to our family, to my dad’s income owning an employment agency? And what, by association, did that say about me?

The pattern has continued as an adult. I love to read Financial Makeovers in The Seattle Times. And I’m as likely as the next person to scan Refinery 29’s Feel Good Diaries, an anonymous recounting of “the physical and mental wellness routines of women today, their costs, and whether or not these self-care rituals actually make you feel good.” Why these columns get a lot of clicks is no mystery: We’re wired to compare.

This particular Feel Good Diary made me stop scrolling my Facebook feed. Here, the article is illustrated with a Bible and headlined “I'm 25, Live In Nashville, And Spent $454.93 On My Fitness & Wellness Routine This Week.”

In the column, the diarist recounts in multiple daily entries how she frugally attends yoga class purchased on Groupon, takes herbal supplements for stress and her sensitive constitution, and keeps a nighttime routine, rating its importance “a 15 out of 10.” She writes, “After ample journal time, I pick up my Bible, read a guided devotional, and say my prayers. My journal cost me $3 from T.J. Maxx, my devotional is free from church, and my Bible is so old, but it was free from my church."

This article has my mind whizzing in a few directions: They illustrated it with a Bible because it’s a curiosity and that gets clicks, interesting move Refinery 29 editors. What does that say about culture? Also: Could this person live Seattle with the same lifestyle? Is Nashville’s orientation towards the church really that different?

But the heart of why this article is interesting to me is because, maybe like you, my self-worth is linked to how much money I earn. I feel pride about contributing to a dual income household. I complain about how there is never enough. How Seattle is a hard place to afford to live.

I remember lean years, when I was first married and we earned a few hundred bucks a week, squeaking by on a $35 weekly grocery budget. I remember the birthday for my young son when I was worried about affording enough party snacks, scanning the aisles of Grocery Outlet and mentally adding up receipts. I remember a anniversary trip to Tulum a few years ago. All the music lessons for my kids. Even though our income has fluctuated over the years, daily life has never felt hugely different, even in our leanest times. We’re never really “ahead,” but we’ve never been in a dire place where shelter or food have been on the line.

We live a middle class life in a culture that says we will never have enough.

Without Jesus as my model, I’m deficient when it comes to living with a mindset of simplicity. Which begs the question, what does Christianity say about capitalist culture, and why is that so hard to apply to daily life?

The gospel message delivers us from the system that tells us our self-worth is based on productivity and pay stubs. My pastor talks about Jesus’ message being at odds with capitalism, pointing out that the people on the fringes were the very ones drawn to him. In 2017, Pope Francis told workers at an Italian steel manufacturer that, ‘capitalism gives a moral cloak to inequality.’

Catholic social teaching talks specifically about the importance of the Christian’s participation in social justice, with a preferential option for the poor. I think of Oscar Romero, the assassinated Salvadoran priest and activist that championed the rights of the hungry and oppressed. Back in the US, Dorothy Day’s social worker movement embodied practical service, moving out of love rather than fear and treating the poor with dignity while she provided for basic needs. And I think of St. Francis, who was born in wealth and walked away.

Maybe it’s self-aggrandizing in its own way, but Drew and I often wonder about following the desert fathers and mothers who left everything for a drastically different life. But even if withdrawing from capitalism completely as a radical act of dependence on God is logically possible, doesn’t that look a lot like opting out completely? These days I’m more convinced than ever that we need Christians moving in public spaces and working for the common good. But that requires staying in the city and making some sort of income.

We’re not all called to be desert ascetics, and many of us have work to do that is rooted in the city. Urban life ties us to a gray area of making many subtle judgments about how to live differently as Christians while making ends meet.

What does that look like practically? It starts with considering a new mindset based on giving and not receiving. I think of the Prayer of St. Francis: to not seek to be consoled as to console, to be understood as to understand, to be loved as to love, for it is in giving that we receive.

More pastoral insights from a recent sermon at my church come to mind: Instead of basing acts of service on gratitude, we’re culturally bent towards the quid pro quo. To do things out of obligation, not love. I scratch your back, you scratch mine. Which makes me wonder if the brazen act of not expecting anything in return is of itself countercultural, and a way to change our postures towards basing our worth on what we earn.

Gratitude helps us loosen our grip in a culture where we’re prone to compare. It’s a first step, and even though the concept of gratitude is the center of popular Ted Talks and a well-worn Instagram hashtag, I’d argue it’s an important one. Let’s give more of ourselves than we get. In doing so, maybe we lose a little control, and maybe that’s a very good thing. Let’s give a double portion with freed and thankful hearts, receive through the giving, and go from there.