Money Wisdom #412

"To God we have become unaccustomed; of God we have become unaccustomed to speak, even to think, especially to write. If we slip and find ourselves thinking, speaking, or even writing of God, it seems embarrassing, horribly embarrassing - even when our inquiry is critical. All of this God stuff was supposed to have been over a long time ago. When someone ventures a word otherwise, the page tends to become a confessional without walls where our most intimate thoughts and unthoughts stand revealed for all to see and hear. Faced with the prospect of such exposure, we grow modest and withdraw. Devising strategies of avoidance in an effort not to think and not say what nonetheless we cannot not think and cannot not say, we turn to history, politics, economics, literature, art. If it is no longer professionally and socially acceptable to speak of God, perhaps we can continue to think about what really matters by examining other forms of cultural expression. Thus, critics repeat - usually without realizing or wanting to realize what they are doing - the nineteenth century gesture of translating theology into philosophy and art. Why do we still search, still probe, still question? What calls us to respond? What disrupts the present? Unless our work is 'academic' in the worst sense of the word, something else haunts the search that is our research. What is this 'something else' and why will it give us no rest?

Mark C Taylor About Religion (1999) p.30-1

Money Burning at F23 and other adventures

Oh, my poor neglected blog !

Rather than explain why I haven't posted since May 23rd - Gosh, we've had Brexit, the Lympix, F23, and Aug 23rd burning since then - I'm just going to point you to an essay I put up on Medium about 36 hours ago.

(If you can spare a click, or even a comment, on Medium itself, I promise you eternal unconditional love. America is in desperate need of all that I talk about in the essay, and your clicking and commenting will help get the medium editors to notice it.)

Money Burning Ritual at F23

I've had a very busy few months. There now exists the world's first magazine for money burners AND a £230 currency collage of The Money Flame (the logo I use on The Money Burner's Manual) . And of course, most important of all, the amazing money burning ritual at Festival 23 has happened - IN REAL LIFE (not just in my head). It's all in the essay.

Just prior to publishing the essay, I revisited Overhall Grove with Angela and we did a burning ritual....  a year on, from the one that inspired me to write The Money Burner's Manual. The Record of all UK Burnings has been updated accordingly. I've also been told several stories about burnings that people have done over the years. Keep those coming !!

Couple of things up coming. The event at the Cockpit Theatre on Sunday Oct 23rd is something I'm looking forward too enormously. Do try to make that if you can. There'll be a Cosmic Trigger cabaret on Saturday Night too, at The Others in Stoke Newington. I entirely confident that imagining a better weekend than this is a complete impossibility.

It also looks like I'll be talking about Money Burning at The Finance and Society Intersections Conference on 3/4 November. I'll let you know more details, when I get them. Super exited about that too, Finance and Society is a brilliant new journal which you'll have seen me link to incessantly on social media. Key note speaker is Nigel Dodd. I mean, come on Money Freaks ! Does it get any better than that?

Other secret things planned too. But I might not tell you about them, even after I've done them. In fact, I've said too much already. So I best sign off here.

Oh, PS.... I'm selling the last 23 copies of Burning Issue here.