Hot Topics: Money and Love

Money and love are separate, or so they seem. Scrooge had lots of money and no love. Those who accumulate wealth through dishonest means are seen as being cranky, cruel, and closed-hearted. Those who marry for money instead of for love are looked down upon as gold diggers and hypocrites. Those who value social status and who will buy a bigger boat just to keep up with the Jones's will never achieve their goal, because there is always someone who's got the newest, biggest boat yet who can still outdo them. Their decision to buy the best merely for the sake of competition is neither based on love nor on common sense.

• Valentine's Day is when tradition says we should give something to someone we love. Much money is made on the Valentine's gift industry, and I see no harm in the honest living made by flower shops, gift stores, and greeting card companies. They are providing a service. They give assistance to an expression of love. They are a catalyst, a vehicle, a carrier, both enabling and aiding the sentiments of the season.

• Singers of love songs make lots of money. Why? Because people listen. People want to hear what they're singing. Is the effect of the song that softens the corners of the mouth, relaxes us, and makes us remember old times any bit lessened by the fact that we paid for the recording? Singers have to eat. Some of them eat very well, but the fact remains that they should be paid to be our bards, poets, and troubadours. We want them to keep singing.

• Love stories have never gone out of style. Who can forget the most memorable romances? There are too many to name, but I think every one of us has his or her favorite story in this genre. (I am not referring the trashy, desperate filth sometimes termed "romance novels" but which may as well be termed as...well, I shall not say. It isn't nice.) Romeo and Juliet, Aragorn and Arwen, Solomon and the Shulammite maiden--these are real and genuine, and have stood the test of time. It is perfectly right that we should buy them and read them.
  

Charity--the original definition of the word was love, but it has come to mean donations, primarily donations of money.  How did these two intertwine again?  Yet it is true: people give to what they love.  When they give they show their love.