Sky at sunset. Dan Villani

Approx. read time: 2:40 min.

After my Saturday morning talk, my hosts take me to lunch at a local breakfast spot. It has the vibe of “locally owned.” 

It turns out, it’s a franchise. The young waiter is thoughtful, courteous.

Afterward, they drop me off at a restaurant a block from the transit platform where I’ll catch my late afternoon bus back home. It’s the only place conveniently near the bus stop where I can wait awhile to meet a friend for an afternoon coffee and chat. 

This restaurant would not be my choice. It’s an upscale big-screen sports bar, with mostly red meat on the menu.

So I did some research: This restaurant is one of 600 properties privately owned by a company invested in hotels, casinos, and restaurants nationwide.

I’m pretty sure they don’t need my money. The small portion of it which finally gets back to the waitstaff likely won’t contribute to a decent living wage. 

This whole situation grates on me. Why?

Because in every dimension of my life, I try to avoid participating in the Financialization of Everything.

In the last apartment building where I lived, I was assured that my rent money would stay in my town. Which it did, until it didn’t.

Where I live now, my rent thankfully would stay local, until that changed, too.

Not participating in the Financialization of Everything requires some things of me: no car; no home ownership—two of the biggest-ticket items for households, along with healthcare and education.

All of it financialized, with Too Big to Fail institutions raking in the interest, fees, and hidden charges.

Not participating in the Financialization of Everything leads me to work independently at honest though unpredictable pay, and not for suppressed wages that benefit some anonymous profit-amassing corporation.

I am free of a corporate-designated retirement fund invested in industries whose missions make me shudder.

It’s hard to escape the ways of King Mammon, whose tentacles reach everywhere, and clutch everything. King Mammon’s power is pervasive, his sway irresistible, his dominion totalizing.

Mammon is the all-consuming love of money and wealth, status, pleasure, and convenience, no matter the cost to hapless others, to society, and Creation itself. 

Jesus warns us of King Mammon: You cannot serve both God and Mammon, he says. You’ve got to choose one or the other. You can’t sorta do both.

I can’t make profit-driven corporate leaders stop worshiping at the altar of King Mammon. But I can refuse to participate in their unjust practices.

I can participate—with my money and good word—in the flourishing of locally-owned, or employee-owned, businesses. I can support local artisans, and contribute to organizations that keep afloat the many individuals and families who can’t make ends meet on their own.

The sobering truth, I discover, is that if I embrace Jesus’ teachings and follow the good way, I have to make peace with its unsettling demands amid the unjust but convenient arrangements of life in the Land of the Upside Down.

I seek to live always in the Land of the Rightside Up.

Let me know your thoughts.

Be well. Live in peace. Love one another.

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