Ramadan 2025 Day Seven: Money on My Mind

“And who is a greater transgressor that one
who ascribes a lie to Allah or Allah’s signs?
Lo! Those who transgress do not attain felicity!
And the Day when We gather them all together,
and we ask those who associated [partners with Allah]:
‘Where are your partners you used to claim as deities?’
Then, no excuse for their mischief shall remain
except for them to say:
‘We swear by Allah, our Sustainer,
we were not among those who associated partners with Allah!’
See how they lie against themselves and how those they invented have deserted them.”
- Sura Al An’am

How many times a day do we think about money? Not just the actual paper or metal currencies, but the ways in which it is an ever present part of our lives and consciousness.

“Do we have enough to pay the rent this month?” / “Can I afford to get name brand cereal today?” / “Don’t forget to get quarters for the laundromat.” / “Double-click to pay” / “Expense reports are due Tuesday” / “Here’s your allowance.” / “Lottery Tickets Sold Here” / “Where’s my tax refund?” / “Boycott Amazon” / “Give to this GoFundMe” / “How much to tip the Dasher?” / “The price of eggs is still yo high” / “Slash government spending” / “Defund Police” / “What’s your Venmo?” / “Payment past due”

And how many times a day do we think about God? (Or whatever it is we may call “God,” the Sacred, the Holy, Love, etc ?)

It’s not that the average person has turned money into a deity. In a world where we have economic systems centered on the man made (and that’s an intentional gendering) construct of money, heck, that we have “economic systems” to begin with, we are frankly forced to constantly turn our minds and hearts to money to survive.

Almost all of us have inherited, and have literally bought into, a way of being that puts us in competition for an arbitrarily scarce resource. We have been forced to sacrifice our health, sanity, dignity, wholeness, and interconnectedness to the false deities of capitalism and consumption. Some of us may even be willing to defend them now, because we were lucky enough for our sacrifice to have paid off. And a few of us have gone all in and only seek to serve the “power” money gives us over each other.

If we really “trusted in God,” we wouldn’t need to put that on our money. We wouldn’t need to put anything on our money, because it wouldn’t need to exist. If we really trusted in a power that could sustain ALL of us, that could support ALL of us in persevering through hardship and thriving together, we wouldn’t need money. We would have each other and a shared reverence for what we can receive and what we can give. We wouldn’t need to turn our minds every minute of the day to numbers, bills, finances, and deals - we would be free to turn our hearts to love, community, and creativity.