Warm-Up Question: How much should education consultants and administrators be paid? Comment below this blog with your answer.
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“Cash rules everything around me, cream get the money, dollar dollar bills y’all.” Is this statement true for you? My Bishop preached a message a while back entitled “Money solves everything.” I was taken aback by the message at first. You know any talk about money in church is labeled prosperity teaching and people get uncomfortable. Well, lack of money causes a real discomfort and our silence on the topic doesn’t make that go away. Cash rules everything around me. I think of my people and I think of poverty and I think of the wide world and wish I could just drop money from planes. I know that would just be the beginning. Money with no clear intent is just as bad as no money. I’m living proof of that.
I’ve said money about ten times in this blog and I want to keep saying it. It’s not a four letter word and the discussion of it doesn’t make me a bad person, nor does the pursuit of it. That actually makes me wise. Consider the ant. With no overseer or boss, she works all summer and stores. She takes pride in what she does and she can see the fruit of that labor all around because she stacks it up. You think the ant isn’t talking about money?
I attended an absolutely beautiful program for Teen Empowerment http://www.teenempowerment.org/rochester.html. At Teen Empowerment young people learn how to lead, how to advocate, how to form relationships and how to break down walls. They learn how to use the anger and the hurt and the pain that they feel to help somebody else. And lastly, they learn how to see their own brilliance, how to harness their own power. And the program needs funds. The staff works their heart out and the weight of that is visible to the naked eye. Part time staffers, (you know in the not-for-profit world, that’s a full time worker who the organization can’t afford to pay) put in over 40 hours a week easily. Should those who pour out the most be broke? If you say money doesn’t matter, you’re a damn fool. Straight up. We’re talking about people with families and talent, why on earth should they struggle? Is that what those with good hearts sign up for?
Not me. See, I want to be able to write Teen Empowerment a check, a big one. I want to put a twenty in someone’s hand the next time I smell their hunger. I want all of my bills to be paid and I want vacations to be the regular. I work damn hard and beyond that I’m damn good at what I do. I expect abundance. Some people question that and I am sorry that they do. But their lack of knowledge, won’t stop mine. And I do understand their skepticism. The poverty pimpers swoop in with their credentials and titles and swoop out with a big check; irregardless of intentions or results. So now consultant is a dirty word in some circles. Hearing money discussed freely makes some people cringe. Meanwhile their own need is yapping at their heels and someone twisted the truth to make them think poor means noble.
Well, your girl is going after the bank. Y’all can stand around and watch if you wanna.