Money, Mortality, & Meaning: Healing The Wounds Of Wealth With Interfaith Minister Reverend Will Green

In a culture that often equates material wealth with happiness, what happens when prosperity creates the wounds of wealth—pain, regret, and disconnection? Join us for an enlightening conversation with Reverend Will Green, an interfaith minister whose work often intersects with the deepest issues of life, death, and legacy—especially in the complex arena of money. Drawing from his experiences, particularly in hospice care, Reverend Green unpacks the “Gordian Knot” of wealth, love, and power. From the anguish of a wealthy man whose grandchildren only want a handout, to the entrapment felt by a woman whose riches keep her in an abusive marriage, we explore why having “enough” often isn’t enough, and how spirituality across all traditions guides us toward a more meaningful use of our resources. Discover why the path to a truly rich life may require letting go of what we own, and making money a force for good.

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Money, Mortality, & Meaning: Healing The Wounds Of Wealth With Interfaith Minister Reverend Will Green

We are with my friend, Reverend William Green, who is an interfaith minister here to talk to us about being an interfaith minister and ministering to people around many things, including wealth, money, and their journey. Will, thank you for joining us.

Thank you.

For starters, please share what an interfaith minister is.

The Role Of An Interfaith Minister

An interfaith minister is a minister who does not have any point of view when it comes to religion when helping others. Virtually all ministers out there, regardless of what faith they are, have a particular point of view. They are either Catholic or they are Baptist, or they are perhaps a Hindu priest or a Jewish rabbi.

That all comes with a point of view about what reality is, what happens when we die, all those big ineffable questions. When I went to seminary, the school taught that all these various belief systems had validity, had beauty, and that they should all be celebrated in their own way. Therefore, I did not have a point of view when talking to people about whatever their problems were. I could relate to anybody’s philosophy of life.

You are working with all of humanity. Is this the invitation?

Yes, exactly.

Wherever you are, whatever you have got. I do have to ask, I am wondering, what about people who are not organized around a higher power, per se, whatever we might call it? There are people who are agnostic, people who are atheist. Do you work with them? Do they come to you?

Finding Humanity In Opposition

In fact, a lot of what was going on in the seminary was exercises, talking to people about things that mattered when my personal beliefs were at odds with their belief system. Could you talk to someone who was a devout Catholic if you were a Buddhist? Could you talk to a Nazi, say, if you were very Jewish? How would you find the humanity in that person, regardless of what their beliefs were?

For the person you are speaking to, for one thing, they might think and see the world very differently from you or have very different affiliations than you. Also, even if they are not organized around spirituality the way you recognize it at all, there are a lot of people who are atheists. Those people have their moments just like everybody else.

Absolutely. It is looking to find that humanity in everyone, regardless of what their beliefs are, basically what the seminary was teaching.

Welcome, Interfaith Minister Reverend Will Green.

Thank you.

For the sake of our viewers, speaking to people, when you are in a conversation with somebody, I assume they are looking at something, something is going on, there is a reason why they are talking to you, they are going through something, they want more or less, or something, they are in an experience. Do you find that money or wealth or their journey with money comes up in these conversations when you are speaking to people of all these different walks of life?

The “Gordian Knot” Of Money & Love

It certainly can. A lot of the work I have done is in hospice, and there was one older gentleman who had been very wealthy, had become very successful in his life, and was very wealthy. He was telling me that his grandchildren did not care about who he was, did not care about his journey, did not care about what had happened to him in his life, and the sacrifices he had made to become this wealthy man. All they were looking for was a handout and to be trust fund babies.

They did not mirror his work ethic or any of the goals that he had as a young man, which enabled him to become wealthy. They just had their head down. The big problem he was having was how much money to give these ungrateful grandchildren? What do I do with the funds after I go? How does this reflect love, lack of love? All those questions. They were coming up in the discussion.

I want to dig into that a little bit. Can we do that?

Of course.

You touched on a few very important things. One is the end of life and the reflections on that. The other is the intergenerational transfer of wealth and people’s uncertainty around that. Likewise, as much as you are telling us you are talking to this man who is at the end of life, who made however much money and is now ready to transition out, there is also the issue of the young people who are stepping into that. What are their lives in front of them? His grandchildren. How are they set up and how the fact that their grandfather made all this money, how does this inform their lives? There are quite a few themes here, and also, all about love is what you bring.

If somebody in your family passes away and does not leave you with anything, does that mean he does not love you? Maybe it does. Maybe he was trying to say something about what their opinion of you was. Probably does. It is money and love, or the lack of love, or the power involved in money. It is a Gordian Knot that is difficult to untangle.

Money, love—or the lack of it—and power—create a Gordian Knot that’s hard to untangle. Share on X

As a reverend, how do you deal with a person who is addressing all those things? By the way, it seems that end of life is that is, please help me, but is that a bit late in the day to start asking these questions?

Yes. A lot of people do not want to face their mortality. At the end of the day, they are forced to. All of these questions come up one after the next in quick succession. It is much better to, of course, have this all planned out ahead of time, but a lot of people do not. I do not have a dog in that race. I am not trying to advocate for one solution over another. I typically just ask questions that are relevant to their decision-making process to help them decide on their own what it is they would like to do before they pass.

Take care to share your experience, what your conversation with this particular man was? Here he is at the end of life, evidently very much struggling over the reality that he generated all of this wealth as a business person. Those things he said are pretty harsh. “My grandchildren do not love me. They only want a handout.”

That is what he was saying to me. He was very sad about how he had spent his lifetime working twelve-hour days and all kinds of sacrifices he had made to get to where he was, and they did not appreciate him for who he was. One of my questions was, is that possible? What would you do to get them to appreciate you? He had no answer to the question. They really were not interested. They just had their hand out. How much money do you give them? How much money do you give to charity? How much money do you give to his children?

Do not skip a generation to his grandchildren. Everybody is already well enough off so that they have to see when they are going to be able to go to college, whatever it is. Do we give away more to charity, for example? If so, what kind of charities? Are you going to try to save the planet, charities, feed starving children in Africa, and fight diseases? There are all kinds of different charities and ways to do good in the world. What is the best solution? I do not know what that was for him.

I guess that is a personal choice for every individual. I come back to the story of this individual as well. You bring up, I am guessing, if he worked twelve-hour days all of his life, amassing all of this wealth, and feels like his grandchildren do not care about him, maybe it is possible that he did not spend very much time with his family and his grandchildren because he was working so much.

That is probably so. Possibly his real love was the idea of being successful. A lot of people, it is not about how much money they make. It is the money, the chips in the game, and they just want to win the game. They never have enough chips, and they never have enough money. They’re never successful enough. They love the process. They love the game, being right in business, or, in his case, he was the head of a business. He was taking risks because he was being very successful with a business that he created.

For a lot of people, it’s not about how much money they make. Money is just the chips in the game—they just want to win. Share on X

He started it, he launched it, and worked at it all of his life, and it was very successful. I hear you that different people have different passions. If somebody were an artist and they worked on their art throughout their whole life, then they would end up with a lot of art and maybe have sold it for a lot of money, or maybe not. That tends to get socially celebrated or respected. People who work hard at their businesses and are very successful are respected. It has a very different social lens.

You might ask the question, if you had worked less hard, would they have identified with you more? That was the thought-productive question.

No, not at the end of life.

I did not ask that question.

It is a late day for that, as we said. By right now, you and I are talking, you being present to people, and you’re saying your observation, your experiences, many people are very engaged in the game, as you call it, of just working it, and hopefully they enjoy it. This is one example where somebody looking back is very much questioning what he is questioning. What was it all for? What was the depth of his questions?

He was re-evaluating the choices he had made throughout his life and the implications of those choices, which he possibly at the time did not quite understand. There was a certain amount of regret that perhaps he was partially culpable for some of the attitudes of his grandchildren, not identifying with them because he was not around. Perhaps on a level, he is not the kind of guy who is able to identify with them and get to know kids in a way.

There are a lot of adults out there who, although they might love their grandchildren, would not sit down and play dolls with them or play a game of cards or sit and just talk about silly stuff. His life was someplace else. To get down onto a kid’s level for a lot of people is very difficult. Regardless of whether he had a lot of money or not, that may or may not have been even doable for him.

That would be the case regardless of what his financial circumstances are, his work circumstances are. We’re talking about money, spirituality, death, inheritance, and intergenerational issues. When you speak to people, are they angry? Are they angry about their money? Are they confused? Are they happy? Do they think they make good choices?

The Responsibility & Burden Of Power

It has been my experience in general that money does not bring happiness. In fact, money brings responsibility. It brings jealousy. It brings all kinds of interrelational issues. Money can be power, and power can be used in good ways or bad ways. The responsibility of how you wield that power in your relationships with others can be very problematic. For many, not having a lot of money is a much simpler, much easier life. People always think, “I’d be happy if I had money.” That is not really the case.

We have all heard it, maybe we all have fantasized about it if I win the lottery and such. My reading about people who win the lottery is that it is often not a good situation. Can we talk about it as an interfaith minister, to whatever degree you have learned about different paths, religious, spiritual, do religions have support, or do they address money as part of life, or is there a balance of spirituality and wealth or comfort or generating it?

I do not think religions, from my point of view, talk about wealth in that way. They talk about charity and your responsibilities if you have money to help others and to lift others up so that they are able to eat properly and send their kids to college or school or whatever. I do not know if any religion addresses the issues that that particular gentleman had.

It could be, but I do not know where it would be located. You are mentioning, and I am familiar with this, some religions that advocate philanthropy, lifting people up. Can you comment on any strong or cross-cultural or cross-spiritual consistencies, or does some religion stand out to you from what you know of different religions? Do some of them have more material, or good material, or something that you find useful?

All religions talk about charity. All religions talk about your responsibility if you have the ability to help your fellow human. I will talk about that. I think what is interesting is that in Judaism, for example, there are various levels of charity, and the levels are graded as much as how personally involved you are in the giving process. You can just give a bunch of money away, and that is a very low level of charity.

All religions talk about charity. All religions emphasize responsibility when you have the ability to help your fellow human being. Share on X

You can actually take someone into your house and help them and feed them, and that is a very high level of charity. There are five, I am not sure, five levels of charity inside Orthodox Judaism. I do not know of any other religion that creates a hierarchy like that. That is interesting. All religions talk about charity and helping other people, and that is your responsibility if you have more than enough for yourself to help others in some manner.

Do you observe that being a spiritual benefit to people? We’re talking about wounds of wealth and healing wounds of wealth. I have heard stories of people finding tremendous healing and growth, and increasing their philanthropy. Is that something that you have experienced as a reverend, witnessing or supporting people in becoming generous or sharing?

When people come to me, they are coming to me with problems, with injuries, with wounds. Those wounds typically have nothing to do with whether they have given enough or not.

Can we talk about how much of Western culture promotes being materialistic? Promotes material wealth as successful, and as an interfaith minister, you’re meeting with people who are at whatever stage of life they are. You say you’ve done a lot of work in hospice, good for you. You mentioned earlier that money does not make people happy.

Money As A “Trap” & The Illusion Of Happiness

I just thought of an example that might be useful. I was talking to this amazingly wealthy woman. She has got this huge place in Marin County and an incredibly wealthy husband. She has all the material possessions you could ever want. She was desperately unhappy, and she was thinking about suicide.

The reason why she was thinking about suicide was that she hated her life, she hated her husband, and her husband abused her. There were some spousal abuse issues, and physical abuse was happening. Yet she did not feel confident in herself to leave him to start over. The money was the trap that she could not see herself living in a studio apartment somewhere.

In my experience, people with very little money—working class or even poor—tend to be, in some ways, happier than those with a huge amount of money. Share on X

Yet that could have made her happy in a way that, although she understood psychologically, she could not get her arms around what that would be like because she would have to divest herself of all the physical stuff that she had, all the trappings of wealth. The trappings of wealth, in her case, were keeping her in a place that was very destructive for her life. Yet she did not feel confident enough to do anything about it. Another example of where money causes people to become unhappy and traps them in a way that is really insidious.

It sounds like the failed marriage and abuse were causing her to lack confidence and develop a sense of self, which was generating her feeling unhappy. To me, the interesting aspect of the story is that there are lots of stories where people are trapped in relationships, men, women, whatever, and do not have the wherewithal to leave. There is an idea, socially, I think, that if people have enough money, it makes it possible. You are pointing out that even with incredible wealth, this woman was trapped just as much as somebody who had very little wealth.

The money kept her in the dysfunctional marriage, and the money and all the trappings were owning her to the point where she was subverting, or she did not have confidence enough in herself to even imagine another reality without all the stuff around her.

She was so accustomed to it that she could not imagine being without all these creature comforts and abundance or opulence or whatever we want to call it.

It was an example of people who have the things owned them, not them owning the things that they own. It was all about the fact that she did not own stuff. The stuff owned her. The way I saw out of her problem was to divest herself of the idea that the stuff would make her happy. That was not something that she could ever accept.

I see. That is a theme. Stuff will make you happy. There are a couple of things that come up in our talk around death, inheritance, intergenerational wealth from both aspects, the elders passing wealth on, the youngers receiving it, and the idea that stuff will make you happy, and that money can be an end in itself that is not about happiness.

It is illusory that that is actually the case. In my experience, people who have very little money or are relatively working class or even poor tend to be, in some ways, happier than the people who have a huge amount of money because, as I said earlier, the amount of money equates to power in a relationship, amongst your peers, in your family. Power can be wielded in a number of different ways, many of which are not necessarily optimal for anyone involved.

Money is power. Money is power in relationships, in dynamics. Whoever has more, has more.

Who can dictate things to other people if they so choose to get their way at the expense of others? It can be used as a way to manipulate people to do your bidding. It can be used in a relationship to, for example, keep this woman coming home to her husband, even though her husband was abusing her. It is very insidious. Not always, but it can be.

Can you share with us stories where you’ve seen people in a good place with it? People are making good choices about whatever it is, their quality of life, their philanthropy. They have reached a point where it is end of life or somewhere along, and perhaps we’ve talked on different themes. Money is power, intergenerational issues, and the end of life.

It comes to mind weirdly, it is Bill Gates. Bill Gates used to be one of the wealthiest people on the planet, and he has given away or is in the process of giving away almost all his money to charity to the Bill Gates Foundation. He and Melinda Gates are giving away billions of dollars every year to make this world a better place. It is pretty laudable. A lot of people who have the money that he has amassed, especially in tech, are not being nearly as generous and are keeping all the money for themselves. They do not have any plan to help others in the long run. Bill Gates is cool because of what he did.

Make money a positive force for humanity, not a tool for exploitation. Share on X

I have been thinking, I am just looking at the time, and I am thinking about our conversation. We’ve covered a lot of ground. Is there anything you want to add, any messages to people, anything that you want people to know, or that you wish for before we wrap up?

Moving From Hoarding To Positive Force

I wish that people would think about, especially money, as we get older, and take care of our loved ones, and take care of the people around us who deserve to be taken care of. Think about charitable donations, think about how to make the world a better place, and create a roadmap for themselves as we age so that we can do good things with our money. We can reinforce and spend time with the people and our loved ones who are in need, help people, make money a positive force for humanity, and not use it for exploitation.

Sounds very nice.

Thank you.

Thank you, Reverend Green. We’re wrapping up, and I am thanking you for your insights, your summary. Many conversations about money come back to these central themes. Money is not equal to happiness. We have to create happiness in our lives, period. Yes, one way is using our money, means, and generosity. That is a theme that somehow frees us, it liberates us, it makes us not dependent on it. It makes the money and means towards doing good in the world, rather than something that we have to just amass more of and stand on and hoard. Thank you very much, Reverend Will Green. All the best.

Thank you.

Important Links

About Reverend Will Green

Will has been a shamanic practitioner for several decades and is an approved shamanic practitioner by Sandra Ingerman, one of his mentors: https://www.shamanicteachers.com/about-shamanic-practitioners

Additionally, he is an ordained interfaith minister / chaplain and member of the Association of Professional Chaplains: https://www.apchaplains.org/. He is Clergy in Good Standing and member of the board at the Chaplaincy Institute. https://chaplaincyinstitute.org, an interfaith seminary and currently works at Coming Home Hospice, located in the Castro in San Francisco and a part of the Sutter Health system. https://www.sutterhealth.org/services/palliative-advanced-illness-management/coming-home-hospice-cpmc

Because of his continuing interest in non-ordinary reality, he is a Certified Plant Medicine Integration Coach. https://plantspiritschool.com. This program is based on trauma informed support and integration, steeped in the indigenous wisdom of the Americas and the responsible use of entheogenic plants.

In 2023, he traveled deep into the rainforest and sat in ceremony with Ecuadorian shamans, learning about plant medicine from the indigenous peoples. Specifically the Achuar and Quichua peoples. https://pachamama.org/

In 2023 and 2024, Will volunteered for over 400 hours at the San Francisco Night Ministry for their Crises Call Line. He answered calls concerning addiction, suicide, end of life, spousal abuse, abject poverty, mental illness and a host of other issues related to the trauma of life. https://sfnightministry.org/

In 2017 he founded the San Francisco Drumming and Journey Circle. The circle met monthly and was active until the start of covid. At close, there were over 1000 people on the mailing list. Only word of mouth or free social media was used for promotion. The circle encouraged journeying to non-ordinary reality in order to receive answers about the pressing issues of life. https://willthejourneyer.com/sfdrumming/

He has volunteered at the Buddhist Prison Ministry since October 2023. https://www.buddhistprisonministry.com/