Intrigued, I flipped through the pages and thought, “Yeah, this looks like something that applies to me, to all of us in fact.” So I checked it out and brought it home. So glad I did.

The Soul of Money is written by Lynne Twist, a woman who has dedicated her life to global activism and fundraising for charities that mean a lot to her and the world, namely The Hunger Project. She writes about her experience travelling and speaking with some of the poorest and richest people around the world. She encourages a new perspective on money, namely that we use it to grow the things that mean the most to us, not to let it rule us in our materialistic keeping up with the Jones’ culture.

Twist talks about money as water: it runs through all  our lives, sometimes in a trickle and sometimes a roaring river. It flows to us and through us and our money acts as a carrier of our intentions. If we are intentional and thoughtful about how we spend our money, however much or little we have, then we are using it wisely. If we give money to causes we really care about, use that money to feed our families, and use it to bring joy and compassion to others, then we have really reached the soul of money.

The previous tagline to the book was “Transforming Your Relationship With Life and Money”, which is the edition I found on my library’s shelf. I think that I like the previous tag line a lot since this book indeed caused me to stop and think about my relationship with money and the care that I put into money and the people and causes it supports. I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to look past budgets and number crunching to the spiritual and emotional relationship we all have with money.