The Man Who Quit Money: A Review and a Reflection

Mark Sundeen’s book The Man Who Quit Money is the true story of Daniel Suelo, a 50-year old American who is becoming famous worldwide as the guy who has lived since 2000 literally without money.  How does he do it?  He dwells in caves or house-sits for friends, and by dumpster-diving for food, clothing and other necessities is able to cover his basic needs.  He has no car, no paycheque, no insurance, no health plan.  What is there to commend this life to anyone?  His biographer Sundeen describes how he has not only found surprisingly ample supply for his personal needs, but has also attained, “to an enviable degree, the universal desires for companionship, purpose, and spiritual engagement”.

Sundeen masterfully tells Suelo’s story in an account that is fascinating and at times gripping in its cliff-hanger moments.  He traces Suelo’s life journey from a Plymouth Bretheren upbringing through his college days, to a tumultuous stint in Ecuador with the Peace Corps. As an idealistic young social worker he struggles with his sexual orientation and a depression that threatens his very life.   Suelo tries with increasing fervour to live a life of integrity to his beliefs, and his travels take him all over North America and beyond to Thailand, India and Tibet to explore Hinduism and Buddhism.   His disillusioned return to the US and subsequent searching finally land him back in Moab, Utah, where he makes the big decision to live moneyless in 2000.

Suelo is a kind of post-modern St Francis of Assisi, courting poverty as a way to attain a greater enlightenment.  As a Christian, I read this book with a mixture of fascination and sympathy, but also with my own filters in place.   I disagree with his philosophy and his syncretistic theology, when it comes to spiritual things.   Suelo has worked hard to create a definition of reality that blends all world religions together without being too beholden to one.  His disillusionment with what he saw of Hindu sadhus, (in it, ironically, for the money) and of the manipulative training he underwent in a Buddhist monastery, is added to his own conflicts with his fundamentalist Christian upbringing (his parents, staunch dispensationalists, at one point planted a church themselves, and continue to be devout in their faith and practice). 

His views on the very tangible world of money are compelling, nevertheless.  By rejecting the entire system of money as an un-real thing, he is trying to not only shape a worldview that is comprehensive in scope, but also to live by that worldview with 100% commitment.

My interest in Daniel Suelo is part of an ongoing journey I am on to try and live a  simpler, more sustainable, and (ultimately) less stressful life.  What I like about Suelo’s approach is his balance of individuality with community.  He is “relentlessly social” and continues to engage in volunteer work in a variety of causes.  While he looks and lives much like a hermit, he is also reliant on a network of friends and acquaintances for survival as well.  Perhaps forsaking money causes us to turn instead to people in a fresh and more vigorous way?    Still, loneliness is something that has dogged him all his life, evidenced in the very honest accounts of his wrestling with being gay and going through the ups and downs of many relationships.  In this, as in many ways, I can’t identify with Suelo.  But reading this book also got me thinking again of my own motivations for wanting simplicity, a journey that author Mark Sundeen conducts himself through as the book unfolds as well.  I like much of the life I live, I have and use and need money, I also have a family to care for and cherish, and I have a higher call on my life, the call and claim of Christ. 

Embracing poverty, like so much other ascetic practice in Christianity, can easily slip into the performance of something in the hopes of attaining salvation.  Suelo’s philosophy remains very centered on the Sermon on the Mount (the final chapter that explores his relationship with his parents and siblings is moving and insightful) but he stops short of embracing Jesus as the way, the truth and the life.  He is more interested in “the eternal present”, and he is critical of the way many Christians live their lives with little concern for the real needs of the real world, something he sees as a basic denial of the teachings of Jesus. 

I believe that Christ DOES call us clearly and compellingly to sell our possessions and give to the poor and to seek first His Kingdom.  I am brought to remembrance of something I have read recently in another book, that “all poverty is relational” (When Helping Hurts by Corbett and . . . .).  We are all poor, we are all broken.  This world is broken, the money system is broken.  Into all this brokenness comes Jesus the God-Man, who lays aside His riches and comes down to us to live among us and to ultimately save us. 

As a follower of Him, I believe He wants me to live responsibly, to give generously, to proclaim good news to the poor, and in all of this to surrender all that I have and want and am to Him as my Savior-King. 

I will most likely never live the way Daniel Suelo does, but reading The Man Who Quit Money was a vicarious experience of what it would be like to go completely off the grid.  It was also heart-wrenching to follow Daniel through many dangers, toils and snares as he sought a place of inner peace and happiness.   What he calls ‘Chance’ I believe to be a gracious and caring God, very obviously protecting him and sustaining him along a very difficult path.  I don’t think God’s finished with him yet, (as I hope He isn’t finished with me either!).  I  pray that the faith and family that raised him may ultimately lead him back home to the One who had no place to lay His head.