This is the time of year at St. C's when we think about financial stewardship. Each week for the next six weeks a different parishioner will be sharing why they give, and how they decide. We invite you to join us in a time of thinking about the spiritual practice of stewarding our money, as individuals and as a community of faith

When my kids were little, they used to groan when we would go to church and there would be sermons about Stewardship.

“No, mom, not Stewardship Sunday,” they would say, like a voice over for a horror film trailer. So, yeah, stewardship wasn’t a favorite topic in our house.

Now my kids are grown and gone. I am single and live alone, but stewardship still isn’t my favorite topic.

I believe that it is an important spiritual practice to give of my time and money, and my church community is a good place to begin. On the other hand, I work for myself, and my income fluctuates. It’s difficult to predict at the beginning of a year, or even a quarter, what my income will be.

Which means there are two parts to my discernment process about pledging. One is easy – the number. I figure out how much I can reasonably afford, then plus it up a little. A good gauge is to look at a place where I don’t spend sensibly, where reasonably indulgent expenses have gotten a bit out of hand. For me it’s shoes. I should be donating more than I spend in shoes by a factor of X.

 Yes, I have a shoe multiplier.

The second more challenging part of the process is dealing with the emotional dust storm that gets kicked up when I think of my finances in a spiritual context. Some of you may be people with neat closets and balanced checkbooks who are super organized financially. I’m not that person. When I think about money it kicks up a whole army of spiritual dust bunnies: my lack of order, fear of financial insecurity and the squidgy pockets of greed. For me, the spiritual practice at pledge time is less about how much to give and more about having the courage to bring all those dirty little fears and worries into the spiritual light of discernment.

Part of my work is to teach people how to talk about money. And I tell them that it will be uncomfortable for some of us, since money carries freight in our culture and often in our minds and spirits. What I say in my work is that we have to learn how to embrace discomfort. For any of you that have some spiritual dust bunnies around financial issues, you’re not alone and I invite us all together to embrace our discomfort and trust that the light of the spirit can bring healing everywhere and guide us to how to best help our community and our world.