Can I Have a Cup of Money?

Immune to reality I am not.

Everyone is making cutbacks and cut outs in today's economic circumstances. We are teetering towards the brink of collapse both individually and nationally.

Riots worldwide are simply the tip of the coming iceberg and the tsunami of catastrophe that will follow from the shocks and aftershocks of discovering that we don't have an endless supply of anything but love.

Sadly, I must disagree with the Beatles and their beautiful sentiment of "all you need is love". I can't remember the last time I paid the light bill with a big hug and a kiss to the folks at the utility company. Chances are had I actually tried to do that, I'd find myself being fitted for a very unattractive day-glow orange jumpsuit.

We have two in college now.

How many ways can you spell "broke"?

I'd love to have a rich uncle or a philanthropic neighbor next door. I'd tap politely at the screen door under the carport and say "I'm a little short on the necessities of life this month. Can I have a cup of money?" 

'Sure thing!' they'd say, smiling. 'Been there a time or two and you helped me out!'

And just like we used to swap eggs, flour, butter and other things in a neighborhood barter system, they'd give me what I needed to tide me over and I'd do the same for them in either direct repayment, or by repayment in kind. Lawn mowing, bush pruning and power washing the driveway would be a good start.

Sadly, as the costs continue to escalate for everything from butter and eggs to books and tuition, we are left with a cosmic juggling act to put money here and there and, it seems, EVERYWHERE to pay for the minutia of life that has suddenly become gargantuan.

I can't remember the last time I went to the grocery store in which the prices in the intervening two weeks were the same. A nickel here, a dime over there and pretty soon everything you buy has sneaked up the price to the point that not only does a dollar not go very far, neither does a twenty.

So it is with college bills. Yet, unless you have some kind of special skill, training, education, product, good or service that everyone needs every day or almost every day, you will go broke trying to make it week to week and still have enough money left over at the end of the month just to live.

I truly feel for those who are in a hard-scrabble position of trying to live on minimum wage. But minimum wage is much higher now than it was when I had to live off of it. And even my best paying job paid below what the current minimum wage is!

Times change and so do expenses.

I realize money isn't the answer to everything, but it certainly answers a few of life's more important questions like "did you pay the light bill?" or "why don't we have anything to eat?".

We have come to the point in our spending in which everyone has realize they are in an "oh, crap" mode. When you have trimmed back all the luxuries decades ago and now you are looking at the necessities to determine just what needful things you can trim back, you know you are searching for the cup of money to help you out.

It never ceases to amaze me though, the expanded "rights" people think they need to have. While luxury items have crept in and become necessities to many people, I have tried very diligently to consider just what we truly need and what is just a 'nice idea'.


If someone out there happens to have a spare cup of money, I'd sure like to get a few bucks to buy some textbooks. If not, we will figure something out.

We usually do by making tough choices and with lots of prayers of faith. God provides. He always does.