Deconstructing my finances ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏
| Hi John! Four days left until a strange man enters your home and eats cookies in your living room! Some of us are excited. Some of us are stressed. All of us are hoping we'll get a cookie too. Let's get into the newsletter! Cartoon: SLAAAY 🎅
Dad Joke: How much is left? 🫠
Post: Then vs now 🫶
Quote: Money money money 💸
Original: Memories and the 1 Year Anniversary |
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| Jesus Sleighs! Love for ALL! |
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| My patience is kind of like a gift card. I’m not sure how much is left on it, but we can give it a try. |
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| Date night then and now. Everything changes but not our love and respect for one another! See it here. |
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| A few of my cartoons (including Jesus Sleighs!) are available as a Holiday Greeting Cards. I've put them into sets that are funny, or serious, or LGBTQ-affirming. Go have a look and pick your favorite! Each pack contains five greeting cards. |
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| I read this interesting little book. It was originally a talk, then a paper, then made into this tiny paperback… by Henri Nouwen, A Spirituality of Fundraising. Here’s one quote, and then I’ll talk about it in the letter section. “If we come back from asking someone for money and we feel exhausted and somehow tainted by unspiritual activity, there is something wrong.” |
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| Money is Spiritual: Money & Deconstruction |
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| When I left the ministry in 2010, I knew I had some very hard work in store for me. And that had to do with my attitude about money. I recognized that I had very unhealthy, negative, and destructive thoughts and feelings about money, and that if I didn’t get healing from these, that I would continue to struggle and inflict suffering on myself and my family for years to come. We were so bad financially when I left the ministry that we had to file for bankruptcy from years in the ministry with a bad attitude about money. It was my fault. And I knew it. So I started reading books, going to workshops, attending seminars, hiring coaches, and getting counselling. Slowly, over the years, I eventually got to the place where I was relatively healed… almost. I still have a ways to go. But a part of my spiritual journey in this area was I wrote a book about it, Money is Spiritual. In this book, I kind of exorcised my own demons. It’s interesting, because some of the people I looked up to in their attitudes about money have mentioned the book. I appreciate that. The title of the book means what it says. Money is spiritual. Because, in my opinion, either everything is or everything isn’t. Dividing the world into sacred and secular, righteous and sinful, holy and unholy, is false. Like I wrote in my previous letter, the separateness is an illusion. So, Nouwen was right! If I feel yucky around money, it’s because something is wrong. Something is wrong with my attitude. Yes, critiquing consumerism and capitalism and cash and credit and all that stuff is a legitimate and prophetic enterprise. I’m talking about just operating in this world as we must. And for me, all the healing work I put into my attitudes about money just got me out of the pit and up to ground zero so that I could function at what I would call a fairly normal, healthy way around money. For some, deconstruction might mean redefining their attitudes about… I don’t know… politics, sex and gender, religion, sex, and all that. For me, one of the main ones was money. Couple my religious toxicity related to money with my artist mentality and, yikes, it was a tough one. But I did it. I healed myself. The division between sacred and secular when it comes to money vanished. And this helped me learn how to live as an artist, a writer, an online community facilitator, and a speaker. Do you struggle with a troublesome attitude about money? |
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| Original: It's Been a While |
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| I painted this on the first anniversary of my mom's death. I still miss her so much. And I guess I always will. There was something very special about her love for me. I felt pretty safe with her, even with our ideological differences. So I painted this in memory of her. It reminds me of the one I painted just after she died, "I Miss You" |
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| I'm thinking about money a lot lately. I sent out a questionnaire and found out that so many of you are struggling with money. I struggle with it too sometimes - that's why they call us starving artists! Please know that simply being here is enough. Your support keeps this community (and safe space) going! Thank you 🧡 Much love my friend, David |
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NakedPastor Gondola Point Road Quispamsis, NB E2E 1H6 |
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