When considering frugality, this story told by my pastor more than 10 years ago always comes to mind.
Once there were two poor monks (monastic I guess), and they each had a coin which they kept as their savings.
The first monk was chosen to become the head monk of the whole country and soon had want for nothing.
The second monk continued to be poor. One day, they met.
The second monk said, “Ah my brother, you are so lucky. Now you are rich! I am still sadly very poor.”
The first monk said, “What is this you are holding so tightly in your hand, my brother?”
”That is my coin! I hold on to it tightly, because it is all that I have, and I am afraid that I will lose it. I look at it all the time, and it is so precious to me.”
The first monk said, “You need not envy me, because I know all that I have now, does not belong to me anyway. I give freely to all who are in need, and I lead a simple life still. I have given my coin away, and simply trust God to provide for my future days.”
My pastor’s reminder to us was to be like the first monk – no matter how much God allows us to own, or how much life on earth endows us with, we are to hold our ‘coins’ loosely, with an open palm.
Ultimately, it is a matter of the heart. It is possible for someone who earns more to have a true spirit of generosity and lead a simple life, live in a simple home, eat simple food and give to all in need. At the same time, it is possible for someone who earns just slightly less to hoard because of a spirit of insecurity, of rather a spirit that finds its security in earthly things.
It is possible to be a monk who holds so tightly to his one coin whilst professing to be ‘poor’ when he is hoarding whatever he has, keeping his savings from the world and obsessing about his one coin.
So whether we are ‘rich’ or ‘poor’, my pastor’s exhortation is for us to hold our coin ‘loosely’, knowing that it can vanish as easily as it can multiply, be generous whenever we can, and not obsess about whatever we happen to have in our hands at the moment.
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