Those well-intentioned stewards of spiritual humility who make ‘the depravity of man’ their first and central principle fall easily into a rigidity that does not characterize the biblical witness which they claim as their source. Scripture’s own assessment of humankind underscores human dignity and potentiality at the same time as it holds tight to the brokenness in which these things are realized.
Yet partisans of human corruption, if it is not unfair to understand their purpose in this way, are on to something.
No good thing, it seems, remains untouched from the stain of humanity’s disintegrating habits.
Particularly not the creation and stewardship of wealth.
Leave it to the Proverbs firmly to plant realism’s flag:
An estate quickly acquired in the beginning will not be blessed in the end. (Proverbs 20:21 NRSV)
It is the detail of haste that makes sense of this aphorism and safeguards it from tendentious interpretation as a broadside against wealth acquired by inheritance or generated by ingenuity. That is to say, the proverb is a cautionary tale about the pace of acquisition rather than a condemnation of the thing per se.
The tradition here manifests its characteristic awareness of the human heart’s vulnerability, indeed its capacity to turn blessing into its opposite.
Something happens to what we properly call the soul of a human being when he or she is obliged to win her battles via a day-to-day wrestling with its deep cost, its inherent menu of disappointments, and the muscle-building practice of swimming always or usually against the current. A man can only properly manage wealth when he has known scarcity, when he has come to terms with the constant possibility that it might disappear tomorrow, when he has faced the doubts not only of bystanders but also of his own heart.
Quick wealth sidesteps the boulders in this path, worse it denies that they are real or at least that they are necessary.
Wealth acquired or produced without the hard work of forming human character is ephemeral. Almost predictably, it does not last.
Only arms aching with yesterday’s effort properly cradle this day’s treasure.
Canter Bridge 
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