Mal Fletcher comments

When we collectively face something that threatens individual freedoms, each of us should look at what we as citizens can do about it - or at least what we can learn from it.

There's not much you or I can do as individuals to turn around national economies, but we can at least make adjustments in our own lives and values, which may lead to greater fruitfulness - and peace of mind - in the future.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, often so obtuse in his public pronouncements, made no bones about his intentions on this issue of the money markets. He suggested that our modern devotion to the free market may be a form of idolatry.

He may be right. Perhaps he is simply rephrasing the words of Christ who said, 'You can't serve God and mammon.'

It's always interested me that this is just about the only time in the New Testament records that money is given a personalised name. Perhaps that reflects another level within the statement: if you rely on money as your primary source of security or meaning, it will take on a personality of its own.

When that happens, money does talk. It says things like, 'I can take care of you in your old age; I can feed you and clothe you.'

In actuality, money is an unreliable source of security, because it has no meaning or value in and of itself - its value is decided by the ever-changing whims of the marketplace.

Money is as valuable as everybody else agrees it is. This means that building a life around the worth of money means putting oneself at the mercy of others, and particularly the whims of marketeers.

In our times, money is even less solid than it may have seemed in the time of Christ. Today, it can and most often is reduced to a series of ones and zeroes, the components of computer code.

Already, a number of women in society are taking a very different course under the media-generated banner of the 'Frugalistas'. These mainly middle class women have taken to growing most of their own food, cutting their own hair and making their own clothes.

A bit drastic? Not at all - it's a sensible response when disposable income is tight. But it's also a recognition of something more fundamental than responses to the credit crunch or ecological concerns.

In what has become an overtly consumerist society - 'I shop therefore I am' - there is for many people a growing sense that the things which supposedly make life easier don't necessarily make it more meaningful or enjoyable.

Contentment is so uncommon today - at least in terms of our financial status - that it might be called a dying art form. Contentment is not the same as a lack of ambition or aspiration. We all aspire to be more than we are. The problem is that we often confuse being more with having more.

Contentment involves a decision to be thankful for what we still have when times get tough - and to celebrate it - rather than bemoaning what we've lost, or wanting what someone else has.