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Dear Dolly,
I put in a big pantry when the virus first hit, around March 12th. Lots of rice, beans, coffee, toilet paper, plus a large bottle of vodka.
When the coronavirus first penetrated my consciousness, I went shopping. My husband and I made a plan: not to dip into our pantry until we had to.
When we had to, we would replace it immediately with another 2 weeks stock. Our decision felt a little noah-esque.
We would also continue to live the French marketing way until we couldn’t anymore. Our little French circle constituted the farmer’s market, the orchards in season, the small bodegas, and Costco for staples.
We haven’t touched the pantry (yet) and, likewise, it appears the crisis of COVID-19 will last much longer than we had imagined. Then again, there might be a vaccine or two.
What to do with the pantry?
Dear Pantry,
A small pantry is likely a good one; a huge pantry is not. Why? It stagnates money and human energy – and keeps the good times of justice and fairness far away. It also reminds you every day of how scared you are.
A pantry is a lot like an endowment. Endowments are just dead money. Money needs to live. Go ahead and have a little back up but don’t have a lot. It keeps you living in fear which is more problematic than running out of rice and beans.
I wonder what would happen if Pope Frances decided to spend down some of the Roman Catholic holdings and just send everyone a check. He could do it regularly, until a new world appeared on the horizon, where people felt good about God again.
The Pope can keep 2 weeks’ worth of the church’s holdings but keeping more looks like you are counting on the pandemic or human sin to just keep going.
I saw a religious institution spend endowment once and it proved highly useful, both to the parent institution and the community. It emptied a bit of its pantry. The Coral Gables Congregational Church had an endowment of $13 million when I signed the paperwork to become their next pastor. In the time I signed, and then arrived, the endowment doubled because its source, UPS stock, went public.
That amount of endowment is just too much for a congregation. It diminishes stewardship, causes the pastor to work without the congregation’s approval -- because she really works for the endowment and doesn’t need the congregation -- and makes the congregation look rich, which also impedes giving.
The church made a plan to leverage its endowment. The first year it matched the Annie E. Casey Foundation and the Knight Foundation with a million-dollar challenge.
Each foundation put in another $1 million and that $3 million launched Accion International’s first U.S. location in Miami. Last year Accion in Miami issued $13 million in loans, 96% of which were repaid. Leverage, leveraged.
The second year the congregation gave $100,000 each in “MacArthur grants” to high achieving nonprofit leaders in the city. Those entrepreneurs went on to add major value to each of their institutions.
The third year, as arts programs were cut in public school’s city wide, the church funded arts and music in those schools within its nearby zip codes. The artists who performed in the church’s jazz ministry taught the kids in school.
Spending the endowment bought ministry and mission. The church increased in members and credibility and the self-governance of an important institution was not threatened.
The best thing to do with power, pantries, and money is to give them away. There are lots of food banks who need food. If you still have money, give your pantry away. If you don’t, eat it. That may help you think more positively about everything.
Dear Dolly,
I have misplaced my predictability calculus. I can’t find it anywhere. My calendar no longer predicts what’s going to happen next. I am headed toward a turkeyless turkey day, a ham free Christmas. What to do?
Dear Calendar,
The song “Jolene” is sung by my guru, Dolly Parton, to the woman who is having an affair with her husband. “I promise I didn’t know he was your man.” Now Cam has responded to the song “Jolene,” and the two women recognize that they are in the same boat with the same man. They bond over their weird togetherness. They have both misplaced their predictability. They both feel betrayed. They both lose trust in what’s coming next.
The virus is like an affair. The virus has betrayed us. It has betrayed almost all of us.
We may as well bond with each other.
All the best for you each and all. And predictability is a whore.
Dolly
Who is the Dolly Mama?
The Dolly Mama is a spiritual version of Dear Abby. Her intention is to combine the irreverence of Dolly Parton with the surrender and non-attachment beloved by Buddhists. She wants to let go of what can’t be fixed – in either self or others – and fix what can by applying the balm of humor.
She is a spiritual handyperson, a soul mechanic, a repairer of broken appliances. Every now and then the combination of letting go and hanging on achieves sufficient balance for an improvement in spiritual posture, stronger spine, and personal peace. The Dolly Mama is not her day job. By day, she works as an ordained United Church of Christ and American Baptist pastor of a regular, if edgy, congregation.
