A Cautionary Tale

Twenty five years ago I was introduced to one of the most charismatic men I had ever seen. He was older than I was, more successful, more confident, even cockier than me. He had a beautiful wife, beautiful children and lived in a gorgeous house in an exclusive neighborhood. In short, he was practically everything that a young, struggling guy like me wanted to be.

Not only was the guy a wildly successful businessman, he was also something of a motivational speaker. Pam and I heard him speak a couple of times and loved it. I was quite mesmerized. Although we never became close friends, he remained for years someone who I held in high regard.

Then, the bloom began to come off of the rose. I began to notice an arrogance in him, a fondness for the spotlight, and most disturbing to me…an unsettling tendency towards business shortcuts. Suddenly, his company transferred him, and just as fast as he had burst onto the scene of my life, he was gone. I’ve never seen or heard from him since.

With the advent of social media, old friends never truly disappear. So over a decade later I learned of his divorce. The man with the perfect marriage, perfect wife and perfect children had left his wife. Part of me was profoundly disappointed, even grieved that a marriage that I had exalted so high in my imagination was over. The cynical side of me wasn’t surprised. Of course it was too good to be true. No couple could possibly be that deliriously happy all of the time, of course.

Now, I learn an even darker truth. I am stunned by the news. How could it have gone so wrong? How could I not have picked up on the epic level of his hypocrisy? I normally pride myself on being able to detect phoniness. My BS detector doesn’t usually fail me. Maybe as a 28 year old man, I wanted it to be true so bad that I was blinded. I wanted desperately to believe that his happy, prosperous life was attainable. In my mind, I had placed him in a trophy case as proof positive that living a Godly life in this world would bring with it rewards in the here and now, not just the hereafter.

Of course, as a 28 year old man, the sum total of things that I didn’t know would have filled an encyclopedia. I should never have exalted another human being in that way. We are all sinners, capable of anything. Still, I think about all the twenty year olds out there who look to me as an example of what they want to be. They too want a successful career, a nice house, a beautiful wife. I suddenly feel the heat of that spotlight.  I feel a heavy burden to never disappoint them the way he disappointed me. If I succeed it will be because of God’s grace.

Easter Weekend in Nashville

My Nashville weekend is over. We made it back safe and sound after spending a total of 19 hours in route and wracking up over 1300 miles on the CTS. Was it worth it, you ask? You decide.

We arrived at our hotel in Brentwood around 4 in the afternoon on Friday. This gave us some time to freshen up a bit. Patrick left his office downtown amidst a tornado alert to make the twenty minute drive to our hotel. We hadn't seen him since Christmas. He looked good and talked a mile a minute all through my birthday dinner at Mere Bulles, a fancy plantation style restaurant just a few minutes away. The best she-crab soup I've ever tasted. Everything else was just ok.

After dinner, back at the hotel, I opened my birthday presents and got caught up on all the latest news in my son's life. Great night.

Saturday, we drove to Patrick's rental house, which I had never seen. I expected it to be a dump, but it was actually nice. Since Pam had planned to cook a big Easter dinner for us all on Sunday, a grocery list had been made, and we spent the morning getting everything at the local Publix grocery store. Then we drove into downtown Nashville for a surprise 65th birthday party for Deen Entsminger at the Flying Saucer, the coolest, classiest bar in town. This was where we were to meet Patrick's girlfriend. We were a little nervous. Suppose we didn't like her? Suppose we found out that her three favorite things in the world were Kim Khardashian, hip hop and soccer? Well, it turned out that I had nothing to be worried about. Sarah was wonderful, charming, adorable and confident. Turns out that my boy is an excellent judge of character.

That evening, we attended the Great Easter Vigil at the Christ Church Cathedral Episcopal church. This is Patrick's favorite church, one that he had attended every single day for all of Easter week. He was clearly into the music, the high church formality and the ancient liturgy. To tell you the truth, I don't know what to make of it. There were parts of the service that were moving, beautifully reverent, even touching. There's something captivating about the ancient rituals, the words and phrases, identical to ones used in Easter services for countless generations of Christians through the ages. Interestingly enough, except for the infant baptism that was part of the nearly three hour service, I heard nothing that I found theologically questionable. I heard beautiful music, I heard scripture read, enough to fill a 25 page program. I heard a ten minute homily that was perfectly fine and appropriate for the occasion. Still, for three hours I never heard anything personal. It was as if everyone in robes was a symbol of something, not the thing itself. The entire service seemed devoid of emotion. There wasn't one single spontaneous moment. Literally every word spoken had first been written and inserted into the airtight program from which there was no deviation. This may just be my faith tradition blinding me from being able to fully appreciate another. But the thing is, I did enjoy parts of it, even loved parts of it. I could do without the priests singing every other sentence and honestly, I could do without all the incense.

The Sunday service was much shorter, and the lights were on, which made it seem less medieval. The music was phenomenal. I must admit that I have probably never seen a better dressed crowd. I saw more seersucker suits than I would have seen at a Matlock convention. And the hats...some of these woman would have given those British woman at the royal wedding a run for their money. The program was only 13 pages, and we actually knew one of the hymns! It was a beautiful service.

Then we all made it back to Patrick's house and Pam started working on dinner. By 6 that night it was ready. She served a honey ham that she had cooked all afternoon in a crock pot, glazed with orange marmalade, Dijon mustard and brown sugar. There was homemade Mac and cheese, green beans, a glazed walnut and pear salad with poppy seed dressing and goat cheese and a strawberry pie for dessert. Patrick and his two wonderful roommates were delighted at such a feast being placed in front of them, even more thankful for the refrigerator full of leftovers!

So...that was my weekend.

Oh yeah, I've decided not to share the details of our near death experiences as passengers in Sarah's car in downtown Nashville on Saturday night. She doesn't know me all that well yet, and I wouldn't want to give her the impression that I'm the sort of person who might take something embarrassing about her and then make a huge overblown deal out of it just to get a few laughs. Maybe later.

An Episcopal Easter

Pam and I have experienced Easter in the Episcopal church this weekend. Last night, was a 2 and a half hour service that featured communion and baptism, lots of fire and 18 inch candles in the hands of every member of the congregation. Today, on Easter Sunday, the service will be shorter, I'm told. I'll have more to say on the experience later. It was fascinating in many ways, and about as different from the Baptist tradition as humanly and spiritually possible. I had to get up and walk around outside a couple of times, and when we left, there was still about 15 minutes to go. I know this because every single word that was spoken was written down in the thick 20 page program entitled, "The Great Vigil of Easter." 

Today is gorgeous and sunny and will feature my wife and son making a full Easter Sunday dinner in Patrick's kitchen. 

And yes, we did meet the girlfriend. She was a delight, adorable in every way. She also nearly got us all killed twice in Nashville traffic. Read tomorrow's blog for all the thrilling details.

Christ is risen.

Weekend Plans

Heading to Nashville today to spend the Easter weekend with my son. I'll be in the car for 9 and a half hours. At least it's a shiny red CTS and looks awesome. And at least there will be snacks. Still...9 and a half hours. Ugh...

Pam will be in the passenger seat, which is also awesome. She's always there, my wife. We've made lots of these sort of trips together. This is what our life has become, we bide time between weekend trips to visit our amazing children. She will stay busy by flipping through her iPad, and feeding me treats. 

Tonight, we will have my birthday dinner at a place called Mere Bulles in Brentwood, the three of us. I'm thinking either shrimp and grits or the chicken fried chicken. No diet this weekend.

There will be lunch at the Flying Saucer, an awesome beer-lovers eatery. There will be a homemade Easter meal cooked by my wife and my son in his kitchen, and we will get to meet the girlfriend.

Lucy will not be making this trip. We have hired someone to take care of her. She knows something is up. What is it with dogs and their suspicion/resentment of suitcases? I will be plagued by guilt for the first hour or so of the trip. Then, about the time we pass Charlottesville, I'll get over it and not give her a second thought, until we get into the car to head home Monday. Then, she will be all I think about.

Today on Facebook, people will graciously wish me a happy birthday. I will be surprised at how many there are and grateful to have so many wonderful people in my life. 

It will be a good day, a good weekend.

Then it will be time to plan our next trip.

Trying Desperately to Mind My Own Business

For several millennia now, "mind your own business" has been powerful advice. Followers of this admonition have reaped the benefits of a less complicated, less stressful and more fulfilling life. People who practice minding their own business have generally been admired and respected by their peers, sought out for guidance and council, and with few exceptions been highly regarded by society. But in 2015, it has grown nearly impossible to mind one's own business, because everyone else seems determined to get all up in it. This takes several annoying forms.

First, the government seems hellbent on getting tangled up in nearly every corner of my business. From monitoring my phone calls and emails to tracking my social media interactions, even to taking away my God-given right to a Big-Gulp, my government is determined to do for me what my mother did for the first 18 years of my life. My mother's detective-like skills were arrayed against me out of maternal love. The government's oversight and overreach is "for my own good" and for the greater societal good, I'm told by my liberal friends. "Yes, you must buy health insurance Doug whether you want to or not because...well, because we know what's best for you."

But it's not just the government, everyone wants to tell me what to do, what to think and even what I can and cannot say. The growing list of words and phrases that have suddenly been judged to be hurtful or triggering has grown faster than the national debt. It seems like practically every thing that comes out of my mouth anymore can be taken as a micro-aggression by some marginalized group or another. Nowhere is this phenomenon more pronounced than in the tiresome cultural clash between homosexuals and Christians.

Full disclosure...I am a Christian, I am not a homosexual. So, there is a good possiblity that what I am about to say will offend someone. Someone reading this might feel micro-aggressed at some point in the next paragraph or two, so if your constitution isn't sufficiently blessed with self confidence, I would suggest that you stop reading immediately.

When this Indiana law thing broke last week, it caught me totally by surprise. I didn't know the first thing about the "Religious Freedom Restoration Act." So, I had to do a bunch of reading. My opinion coalesced around the notion that the RFRA might very well have been well-intended but might possibly result in descrimination. Still, the response of the gay rights community seemed over the top with hysteria. I mean, come on people. Gay marriage has gone from a pipe dream to a reality in ten short years, the gay lifestyle is celebrated from Hollywood to Academia, gay people are amoung the most successful, high earning demographics known to exist in the free world. But to see them screaming in the streets, you would think that the prospect of being denied a wedding cake by some baker in Gary was about to usher in the Age of Darkness. It's like, the gay rights movement can't take "yes" for an answer. They seem determined not to rest until every single solitary person in America is forced to celebrate them! Instead of organizing boycotts of the entire State of Indiana, how about you try a different baker and let the marketplace punish the knuckle-dragger?

And the Christians? Holy overreaction, Batman! Why, we can't make a cake for a gay couple because that would tell the world that we approve of gay marriage. Sure. Just like when you made that cake for the Stein's last week told the world that you approve of Judaism. Or when you baked that three layer beauty a month ago for that hard partying couple from Indianapolis told the world that you approve of heavy drinking and dirty dancing. If providing a product or service to a customer equals moral and spiritual approval of that customer's conduct, then I'm thinking that every Christian business needs to come up with a rather extensive questionaire to give to all potential prospects....

1. Have you ever, or do you ever plan to break one of the Ten Commandments while using this product or service? If so, put this survey down and exit the building.

Not exactly a viable business plan.

Listen, I get the fact that there is a huge divide between homosexuality and evangelical Christianity, one that does not lend itself to quick fixes. There seems to me to be a rather clear scriptural basis for the proposition that homosexuality is a sin and not part of God's plan for his creation. But I find no reason why that fact precludes me from being friends with gays, or doing business with gays. Nobody died and made me judge and jury of other people's lives. I happen to be a sinner who lives in a world full of other sinners. Hell, I'm up to my elbows in sinners here. While I like to think my sins aren't as bad as my neighbors, that's not up to me. It's none of my business, actually. Scripture tells me that the entirety of God's laws can be summed up in two of them...to love God with all my heart, and to love my neighbor as myself. That sounds a lot easier and more fun than organizing boycotts.

Or maybe, we all need to just mind our own business.

April Fools. The Greatest Day of the Year.

Today is the day. It's finally here. All the plotting and scheming is over, all the planning done. Now comes the fun part. 

April Fools Day is simply put, the greatest day of the year. Christmas? Psshhtt! Thanksgiving, July the 4th? Puh-lease. Nothing compares to a day when you wake up and suddenly practical jokes are acceptable behavior, suddenly it is not only ok but expected to hide open cans of cat food in the filing cabinets of your colleagues. For one day of the year, I'm allowed to sabotage the copy machine by slipping random sheets of paper throughout an entire ream with big bold type declaring that BLAIRE IS AN IDIOT. Only on this blessed day am I allowed to fill storage cabinets chocked full of orange ping pong balls, or place cloves of garlic inside the mouth pieces of people's phones. It's difficult to put into words the thrill one gets from watching your buddies losing their minds trying to figure out why their computers keep typing words in Japanese. Watching them go slowly mad trying to find the source of that annoying, shrill BEEP that is coming from somewhere every three minutes. The sound of female screams from down the hall when suddenly my remote controlled mouse scampers out from under their desk is, professionally speaking, about as good as work gets.

So, I better wrap this up and get to work. I don't want to miss anything.

Taxes Are Great!!

There is a famous similarity between death and taxes, but it's the wrong one. Yes, they are both inevitable, but what really unites them is the anxiety that surrounds that inevitability. After all, we only die once, but pay taxes every year. Death at least has the virtue of being final.

As a business owner, I have no taxes, state or federal, withheld from my pay. Instead, I must write a check each and every month for what I "estimate" that I owe. This is over and above both my employee and employer Social Security taxes. Actually, I don't even write a check, rather, I make sure that the amount I owe is in my business account on the 15th of each month for the Feds and the 25th of the month for the State of Virginia, because that's when the eagle swoops in and takes via something called an "automatic debit transaction."

The hard part is the estimating. Basically, it works this way. You start with what you paid last year, then you compare your income from last year and compare it to this year and make adjustments accordingly. Seems straight forward enough on paper. The problem is that it never seems to work out how it's supposed to. No matter how much I pay during the year, I always have to pay more on April 15. It's like an intransigent, immutable law of physics. Of course, the fickle nature of business also plays no small roll in my tax-paying difficulties since cash flow is about the most cruel feature of any enterprise. What happens if the 15th rolls around and nothing is shaking in the receipt ledger? The IRS doesn't care about my cash flow difficulties, all they know is it's the 15th and they are hungry.

To aid me in my tax dealings, I employ an accountant. He has prepared my tax returns for over thirty years now. He knows more about my financial life than anyone on earth, including me. If he were to suddenly die of a heart attack, I would be lost. I give him all of my records in February every year and then the waiting begins. Sometime in early April, my tax return arrives via FEDEX weighing in at close to two pounds. My hands tremble as I pull the little rip chord thing at the top of the package. At the top of the pile is a cover letter which starts, "Doug, please find your 2014 tax returns enclosed. Sign the e-file authorization and fax it back to my office. Make a check payable to the U.S. Treasury in the amount of....."

Each year my heart sinks as I read the number. Each year I can't believe it. I was so careful this year, how could I possibly owe this much? For a minute I think that there must be some mistake, but there never is. He's right, my accountant. So, I write the check. Sometimes, I first have to take an advance from my line of credit, THEN pay the tax, but it always gets paid. Then I find his bill for professional services further down in the pile of forms. I pay that too.

Years ago, I used to get angry. I used to feel put upon having to write such ridiculous checks. I would rail against government waste and corruption being at the root of this unfair shakedown. But ultimately, that way lies madness. Our Rube Goldburg tax system simply is what it is, and whining about it is wasted energy. So instead, several years ago I changed my thinking. What if I turned this horrible negative into a positive? Suppose I made it my goal each and every year to pay MORE in taxes than I had the year before? After all, if my tax obligations are rising every year, there's a good chance that my income is as well. Success is the greatest revenge, I'm told. 

Yes, yes it is.