A Dollar and a Dream

I got another one of those e-mails the other day.

You know the kind: a favorite format of the conspiracy theorists, it's been forwarded several times to several people, and it purports to tell a tale of how the federal government (an entity never to be trusted) is taking the side of the godless atheists against the majority---we good, God-fearing, patriotic Americans.

The outrage this time? The new presidential dollar coins "were designed" to omit the motto"In God We Trust. " Fumed the anonymous writer, "Here's another way of phasing God out of America."

As usual, the people mindlessly forwarding this claim---which has been making the rounds for a year now, even since the first four coins were issued---never checked the facts. The phrase is there all right; it's inscribed on the edge. (See above.)

And, as per the Consolidated Appropriations Bill of 2008, Congress has instructed the U.S. Mint to move the motto to either the front or the back of future coins in the series, beginning in 2009. What ticks me off is, our elected officials apparently called for the change in response to the pious watchdogs of the Mint who didn't examine the coin the first time out. Your tax dollars and mine at work---and all for a flap over what appears on U.S. money.

Personally, I am far more concerned about how our currency and coinage gets spent, and what it is spent for.

I have a modest suggestion for those have taken offense over the perceived lack of national religious feeling as exhibited by the dollar coins:

Should you be so unfortunate as to receive one of these coins in change, why not simply drop it into your church's collection plate? (In addition to your usual generous offering, of course.) It's legal tender, the usher taking the collection likely won't refuse it, and you might even curry a little favor with the God you insist all of your fellow Americans must honor. (I wouldn't count on the last, though; my recollections of the New Testament---Render unto Caesar, Ye cannot serve both God and mammon, the rich man and the camel and the needle's eye, Jesus and the money-changers---lead me to believe that the Almighty is not best pleased by those who throw money at Him.)

If you wish to demonstrate, before God and everybody, what a faith-filled nation this is, here's another suggestion, less modest:

How about seeing to it that, in this obscenely wealthy country,

no one goes to bed hungry? According to America's Second Harvest, for 35 million Americans---about nine million of whom are children--- hunger is an everyday reality. One of those despised dollar coins would pay for 16 meals.

For me, the choice between putting God's name on a coin or using the coin to do His (or Her) work isn't even a toss-up!