30 September 2013

A Few of My Favorite Things: C is for Church

Church

I’m grateful to live in a country where I can attend church without fear, and for a good church conveniently located near enough to not be an ordeal to get to every week. I’ve been blessed to attend several good churches, both back home and after moving to Oregon.

I “grew up” at Leawood Baptist Church in Memphis right at the time when the pastor of 32+ years, Jerry Glisson, was retiring and his successor, Tommy Vinson, was arriving. To this day, I credit Bro. Tommy with laying most of the foundation of my faith. From there, I went to BellevueBaptist Church in Cordova, a little country church that seats about 8,500 and runs in the low teen-thousands on Sundays. After moving to Oregon, I found Morning Star Community Church and was blessed to call it “home” for about 5 years. When my wife and I started dating, I visited her church, West Salem Foursquare, and after we got married we chose to continue attending there. I enjoy the church, though I’m a tad reserved for the charismatic atmosphere. Doctrinally, they’re not that far off from my core beliefs, though Foursquares in general sometimes over-emphasize speaking in tongues (a controversial subject I’ll not get into today). I look forward to getting more comfortable and plugged in at WS4S!

Do you attend church regularly? Where and why?

26 September 2013

A Few of My Favorite Things: B is for Books

Books
I love to read, although I read kinda slow and don’t have a lot of time to do it. I read an eclectic variety of fiction and non-fiction and have a large bookcase at home filled with pages and pages of things I’ve read, reread, want to read, need to read, and hope to read. I can’t imagine living in a time when books were not available, and count Gutenberg’s press as one of the most important inventions of all time (although moveable type was invented in China at least 400 years earlier). Even with the rise of the computer age and technology and all its attendant convenience, I just haven’t been able to talk myself into buying a Kindle. Okay, not being able to afford a really nice one like I want doesn’t help, but there really is something special about holding a book in your hands. Feeling the crispness of the pages, the smell of the paper, the permanence of a hardcover, the casual familiarity of a paperback. I read a lot of histories and biographies, and of course, the Bible, which I’ve read through at least once (meaning I’ve read it all at least once, parts of it many more times). I’m currently on at least my 5th tour of Stephen King’s Dark Tower series, having paused at page 48 of volume VII to go back and pick up The Wind Through the Keyhole (not my favorite of the series, and a bit of a disappointment for a long awaited addition to Sai King’s magnum opus). However, I don’t have a paper copy of it yet, only the Kindle version on an app on my phone, which makes me grateful for books even more. Hard to read on that tiny little screen. I’m also reading a lot of material for a Hillsdale College course I’m taking on economics.

A few of my favorite books over the years include:


Oncean Eagle by Anton Myrer


Band of Brothers
by Stephen E Ambrose

Knowing God by J. I. Packer


Churchill: A Life by MartinGilbert
 

It Doesn’t Take a Hero by H.Norman Schwarkopf



Reading is like being able to look out your bedroom window and change the view.

What’s your favorite book?
”The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who can't read them.” – Mark Twain
 

24 September 2013

A Few of My Favorite Things: A is for Anniversary

Today is my one month anniversary with my new wife (I love you, Honey!), so what better way to start a list of my favorite things? My wife is the love of my life, my friend, my partner, my lover, helper to me, parent to our children, co-bread-winner and bacon-bringer, compass, anchor, my sails and the wind that fills them. She is everything I could ever ask for in a wife. She’s my cheerleader, coach, load-lightener, burden-bearer, and my biggest fan. She fills my life with color and wonder. So today, I’m grateful for this month of marriage and the anticipation of a long road of togetherness in front of us. I couldn’t be happier being your husband, and if I had a hundred lifetimes, I’d marry you in every one!

Have a marriage success story you’d like to share? Feel free to comment below!

17 September 2013

Family Ties

recent post on a blog I follow concerned a now-viral obituary alleging years of emotional, physical and psychological abuse by the deceased, perpetrated upon her children, their friends, and … well, according to the obit, pretty much every human being the deceased came into contact with.  As the obit grew famous, the writers came forward, reiterating the claims and proudly unrepentant (I’m not saying they should be repentant, I’m just saying they aren’t).  The obit in question was co-written two of six, making Mom a unifying factor in this sibling relationship.

In my business (which I will generically say often involves inter-generational wealth transfer), I encounter more than a fair share of familial squabbles.  Sometimes, in my disinterested opinion, it’s justified on the part of some family members, as the obit writer claims, but that’s not my business to decide.  Often, Mom’s money (or junk) is only the catalyst setting off a conflagration that has nothing to do with her.  I often hear, especially if we’re down a generation or two and dealing with multiple branches of the family willow, something to the effect that “everyone is a crook except me.”  It most often involves generational peers, be that siblings or cousins, but aside from the tax advantages of trusts, the equitable (or otherwise controlled) distribution of family wealth among competing interests is often the testator/trustor’s primary concern.  I usually can’t make everyone happy, but I can sometimes make everyone equally unhappy.

This got me to thinkin’ about sibling relationships, which can be the most complex relationships we encounter in life.  Like our own birth, these relationships (usually) come into being completely through no thought or choice of our own.  We do not choose our siblings, or often even choose whether or not we have siblings, and sometimes we gain them over our direct objections.  Yet we are forced to live, eat, work and play with these intruders as though they are our very best friends for much of our formative years.

I should pause here and say that I do not, indeed cannot, speak from experience in this area.  Although I have two half-siblings, both older than me, I was adopted and not raised with them.  I was raised as an only child, and thus did not experience all the joys and pains that come with siblinghood.  My sweet wife is the youngest of five siblings and has shared the insights thus gained with me on multiple occasions.  What follows is not a reflection upon her or her siblings (one of which I haven’t even met yet), merely what I hope will be interesting blog fodder.  Any resemblance to actual persons, alive or dead, is purely coincidental.

Siblings can be our strongest allies; the one always standing beside us when we’re attacked, always with an arm around our slumped shoulders, or reaching down with a helping right hand.  They can also be our most vexing bullies.  Older siblings may resent the presence of the later arrivals and the parental time and attention that is routed away from them as a result of this interloper.  Younger siblings may find delight in torturing an older sib under the umbrella of Mom & Dad’s protection, getting away with things for which an unrelated third party would murder them in cold blood.   Sibling rivalry is so cliché that it’s, well, cliché.  But clichés don’t get to be clichés by being wrong.
"Historically [sibling bullying] has been accepted as something that's normal, as something that's benign. Oftentimes it's just dismissed," study author Corrina Jenkins Tucker, an associate professor of family studies at the University of New Hampshire, told The Huffington Post. "Some people actually view it as a good thing, thinking it teaches kids how to fight and develop conflict resolution skills."
But a recent study in the journal Pediatrics says sibling bullying can be just as damaging as peer bullying.  The article claims: “Children who experienced even just one, relatively mild act of sibling aggression in the past year reported greater mental health distress than those who had not. Kids aged 9 and under were more distressed after experiencing physical aggression than their teenage counterparts, but all age groups were equally affected by other forms of bullying.”


The Center for Disease Control (CDC) cites bullying as a major health concern:
…nearly 30 percent of adolescents in the U.S. have either been a bully, been the victim of bullying, or both. Children who are bullied are at greater risk for depression and anxiety that may last into adulthood, as well as lower academic scores and broader health complaints. Being a bully also carries health risks: Children who are the aggressors are more likely to abuse alcohol or drugs as they get older, engage in early sexual activity and abuse their partners or children.

These childhood distresses often come out in the lawyer’s office after Mom or Dad has passed.  Contrary to what you see on TV, families rarely gather together in one place for a “reading of the will,” but meetings do often take place, especially in cases where the lawyer and I didn’t know the descendants prior to probating the will.  Countless times I’ve had to have separate meetings because the co-beneficiaries can’t tolerate being in the same room together.  Lifelong perceptions of favoritism become accusations of impropriety and demands for me to make things right. 


From my perspective, I’m bound by the document the decedent left in writing, and I’m usually very thankful.  Sometimes I can see the undercurrent, sometimes I can’t, but whether the deferential treatment is memorialized or not, my job is to carry out the written instructions of the testator/trustor.  This sometimes makes me the common element that finally unites the beneficiaries; the common enemy they can focus on, and I’m fine with that.  I’ve never had anyone get particularly nasty about it, though I’ve had a few that let their distaste be known in no uncertain terms.  I’m often what stands between them and “their” money, which Grandpa always intended they should have… that’s why he left it in a trust with more strings than Geppetto’s workshop.  I’ve had to tell in-round pool installation guys to recall the backhoe and car dealers to retrieve the keys because trust beneficiaries went in and ordered something and told them to send the bill to me, while Grandpa left a piece of paper that said they pretty much only get money for medical expenses if they’re destitute… because he knew they would order in-ground pools and Ferraris before the memorial service was over.


Do you have any stories of sibling rivalry (no names, please)?  How did/does it affect your life?