Russ’ North Star

Yesterday from the pulpit I heard this statement...What we spend our money on is a reflection on what we value. The point of this was to get us to examine where are hearts are when it comes to how we spend money. For example, if you flip through your checkbook and discover that you spend a thousand dollars a month on makeup, you might value your appearance too much, etc...A quick examination of my spending habits reveals several interesting things:

- Over the past year, my largest creditor, by far, has been the Internal Revenue Service. This reveals the fact that I value my country and my freedom. It also reveals my sincere desire not to be sent to prison.

- Next comes my mortgage. I value the roof over my head. Five more years and she will be paid for!

- Then, something interesting...a category that surprises me. I spend a crazy amount of money on something that my wife refers to as things that bring our family together. I hadn’t really thought about it, but she’s right. 

All parents spend money on their kids. Even when they grow up and move away, we can’t help ourselves. I’m told that it gets even worse once grandkids arrive. Here’s the thing, when you’ve spent twenty something years raising them, then suddenly they’re grown up and independent, it’s hard to break the old habit of buying them stuff, ok? Anyway, I think it’s especially difficult when they move far away. That’s where vacation spending comes in. In my case, it’s all the fault of my father-in-law, Russ White.

Not long after I fell in love with my wife, I got invited to go along with her and her family to Maine for their yearly pilgrimage to a place called Dummer’s Beach. It was a dumpy little campground in the middle of nowhere at the edge of a magnificent mountain lake, the likes of which this Virginian had never seen. The place was magical. I soon learned that this lake had been the summer home of my wife’s family for their entire history. Each and every summer, starting in a tent, the Whites would live at the lake. Russ would make the thirty minute commute to his job during the day for three months...from a freaking tent! As the years went by, they graduated to a pop up camper, then to an RV, but the one thing that didn’t change was...the family was together at Dummer’s Beach. Russ had placed a North Star in his family’s firmament that was as dependable and reliable as the sunrise. They would be together in this place, every summer.

I had never had anything comparable when I was growing up. My family never really took vacations. There were a few here and there, but nothing like the White compound in Maine. While I managed very quickly to fall in love with Maine, what I really fell in love with was the idea of a fixed place and time that was set in stone for...the family. 

I would wind up making at least 25 Dummer’s Beach trips. Russ and Vi can’t make the long trip as often anymore. So, ten years ago, Pam and I discovered MidCoast Maine, and have started our own tradition. Now, it’s gotten almost ridiculous...this year we will spend six weeks up there. There are no tents...we rent fabulous lake houses large enough to accommodate my kids and our friends. It costs a lot of money, money that could be spent perhaps more wisely elsewhere. But, each summer, there’s a place for my family to gather. All the kids have to do is...get up there. We provide the rest. It’s something that they have always been able to count on in their lives...summers in Maine. As long as I’m alive, it will always be so. When grandkids arrive, they will be introduced to the wonders of Maine.

It’s not just me and my family. Russ’s North Star has also inspired my extended Dunnevant family to establish our own summer vacation traditions. Many years ago, inspired in part by Pam’s Maine stories, the Dunnevant’s started going to the beach for a week in the summer. The first such beach house rental was a hell hole dump in Sandbridge. Now, each house is a multi-story mansion with eight bedrooms and a swimming pool. Twenty of us descend on the place for a week every other year. It has become its own tradition and holds a special place in the family lore. It’s crazy, chaotic and cramped...and great fun!

So, when it’s time for me to write those staggering checks to the rental company in Maine, I blame Russ White. He’s the one who first set down this marker. He’s the one who demonstrated what it means to prioritize family, and create lifelong memories that revolve around not just family, but...place. I will forever be in his debt.

Naming Your Small Group

If you’ve spent much time in Church recently, you’ve been introduced to the organizational tool that has swept practically all of Christendom...the small group. Actually, precisely what to call the thing isn’t exactly clear. Small group. Life group. Family group. It’s all over the map. Essentially it serves the same purpose as a Sunday School class used to, only it meets during the week in someone’s home instead of at church... and food is involved.

I’ve been a part of one of these groups for over a year now. It’s Pam and me and four other couples. Sadly, I am the oldest of the ten members, a sad and irksome fact of life I have reluctantly come to accept. However, ours is not one of those multi-generational small groups we keep hearing about. No...there are no young couples with toddlers running around, nobody on Social Security. We are all in pretty much the same stage of life. We all have either grown children or children on the cusp of independence. We all take turns hosting  our gatherings, and during most of the year we meet three or four times a month, during the summer, a bit more sporadically. We communicate with each other via a nifty little private chat room app called GroupMe, which our fearless leader, Chip the Engineer, accidentally referred to as “Grope”Me one night, and the name has stuck! Anyway, we get on there to organize meals and whatnot, and also just to keep in touch during the week. Well, last night was a GropeMe highlight. One of our members brought up the fact that she doesn’t know what to call...”us”...home group reminds her of a nursing home, small group sounds like kindergarten, and life group sounds too pretentious. We need a snappy name, she said! 

Chip the Engineer’s wife sent us a link to an article which offered potential names for small groups...so apparently we aren’t the only ones thrashing around for snappy names! As the oldest member of the group, I found all of the names in this article highly offensive, since they were all derisive of older people...Geri-Actives and sizzling seniors. Somebody threw out...Hope Geezers, and The Pacemakers. Then it degenerated rapidly from there. We have several golfers in the group, so someone suggested, The Swingers...which I kinda liked because it seemed just questionable enough to make it interesting! After thirty minutes of this, no decision was made, so at this point we remain nameless.

So, our last meeting was just this past Thursday at our house. Our rule for the summer months is that whoever hosts the meeting is responsible for leading the devotion, or bible study portion...so this one fell to me. I decided to lead a discussion on the significance of the Seven Deadly Sins vs The Cardinal Virtues... a sort of compare and contrast kind of thing. I gave Chip the Engineer a heads up about the content so he could prepare some power pointish slides for illustration purposes. So, after dinner, I start in with the lesson and his first slide pops up on the screen...

The Seven Daily Sins

Set aside for a moment the fact that our fearless leader is now responsible for two epic Freudian slips. More importantly, this second one gave me a great idea for a proper name for us... The Dyslexics!!

Just in case some of you are wondering just how theologically sound and doctrinally vigorous our studies are, the following slide is illustrative... 

Postpartum Depression

Have puppies, they said.

Build a legacy, they said.

It will be fun, they said.

This photograph is either the best ever illustration of postpartum depression, or the perfect representation of exactly how public school teachers must feel during the last week of school...

So, I sent this photograph to my daughter on this, her last day of the school year with her students, and immediately we began a back and forth competition on who could come up with the best caption...

Kaitlin: Why in the heck are we having a meeting after these pups have been dismissed for the summer?

Me: In case you’re wondering, I will not be taking any crap off of anyone today.

Kaitlin: Are they sucking away my milk or my life force?

Kaitlin: I feel like my job is doing this metaphorically.

Me: You seriously want me to catch a frisbee from you right now?

The Coolest

My church is just the coolest...

Ok, Pam and I had no sooner finally taken the plunge and joined Hope Church, when a new sermon series was launched entitled, Healthy Money. I’m thinking, Great...what is this, some sort of cosmic bait and switch? Two years at Hope as a visitor and I don’t hear squat about money, we sign on the dotted line and bamm, here it comes!! As a preacher’s kid and professional skeptic, I have become jaded over the years to pleas for cash from the pulpit. I generally consider sermons about money as mostly exercises in church fundraising, kind of like those annoying 24 hour PBS beg-a-thons you have to endure every once in a while. So, it was with great trepidation that I attended church three weeks ago to hear Pete Bowell introduce the four week series. The next week it was David Dwight’s turn, last week, Nicole Unice. Three weeks in and I have heard narry a peep about tithing. Not only that, not one word has been said about the church’s finances. Maybe they are saving all of that for this week’s finale? Maybe, but so far this has been a decidedly unique money series epitomized by last week’s message by the estimable Nicole Unice, which I will attempt to summarize...

According to Nicole, the primary reason that we all need to get our crap together when it comes to money is that it frees us up to get in on the real thrill of...giving it away! Generosity is one of the most powerful concepts in Christianity, and if we are mortgaged to the hilt we miss out on the joy that comes with giving. It’s important to point out at this point that she was not talking about giving it away...to the church...necessarily. No, she was talking about something else entirely. As illustration she asked all of us to look under our chairs for a white envelope. There were two such envelopes, each containing a $50 bill. Then this...

If you found this $50, your assignment this week is to pay attention to the people around you. Keep your eye open for a chance to give this money away. Seek to be sensitive to those around you who may need a small miracle, and then follow the promptings of the Holy Spirit.....or something like that.

She went on to challenge the rest of us. In a church like Hope, everyone is in a different financial place. Some of us can afford to be generous with more than $50 bucks, others, like teenagers and young parents with toddlers, it might only be $10 or even $5. Whatever the amount is doesn’t matter, the point being...something that is sacrificial. She then instructed us all to go to the bank and get that amount out, fold it up and place it in our wallet. Then spend the week looking for a chance to give it away. If the scripture is to be believed, the stories that will come flying back to us as a result of this outbreak of generosity will be amazing, and spur even more enthusiastic giving. 

I love this sort of thing, always have. Being in a position to be a blessing to struggling people has always been one of the most fulfilling things to do with money. So, I obediently went to the ATM and withdrew a C-note. So far, no opportunity has presented itself. I mean, I live in the west end of Richmond in one of the most affluent suburbs in Virginia. It’s not like I’m surrounded by hard luck stories. But then I read this morning where Kate Spade, famous handbag designer was found hanged in her grand New York City apartment...a suicide. It serves as a stunning reminder that everyone, and I mean everyone...is fighting invisible battles. I need to look harder, look past the facades.

Anyway, nothing yet, but I’m excited for the opportunity and thankful for the reminder from the pastors of my very awesome and relevant church that everything I have been given in this life is a gift and I hold it in in trust. God doesn’t need my money, but he needs my willingness to use it for something more noble than my own comfort. 

An Observation and a Birthday

Here’s something I’ve noticed about life, although good news feels better than bad news, bad news clarifies the mind. A bad report performs the valuable service of cleaning out frivolous thoughts from your head and replacing them with more rational, sober ones...a not entirely bad thing. Of course, too much bad news can lead to despair, but an occasional broadside of alarm can snap you out of dangerously pollyannish thinking. 

In my line of work, for example, a sharp and sudden sell-off in the equity markets can serve as a reality check for a new investor who has never lived through a major bear market. Watch your portfolio crater in on itself by 25% over two or three weeks and suddenly your internal fantasy math about how you’re going to retire with 5 million at age 45 come crashing down to earth. But this principle works in other areas of life as well. Your first unexpected health scare can shake you out of bad eating habits faster than a thousand lectures from friends. One terrifying flutter of the heart will suddenly convince you that eating a box of donuts every time you feel like it might not be a wise long term diet plan. But, without that terrifying flutter, ignorance is bliss.

So yeah...bad news can be the great clarifier, the mother of correction, you might say.

Just an observation on this 5th day of June. 

Speaking of which, something happened on this day 62 years ago which most definitely was not bad news. My sister, Paula, was born. In her life she has been my playmate, buddy and friend. She has been my ally in pitched battles with our two older siblings. She has been my sounding board, a debating partner and for a couple of years back in the day, a roommate. She has been a proud and doting aunt to my children, a dear friend to my wife, and wicked-good cook and hostess. She can be irrational and overwrought at times, but she is seldom if ever in doubt, the signature trait of all The Dunnevant clan. Like my other siblings, she has always and will always have my back. So, on this day, I wish her the best and happiest birthday.

Wedding Fashion and Me

There are a great many things in this world about which I know nothing, in many cases, less than nothing. But, perhaps there is no single thing that my education, training and experience has taught me less about than the subject of proper wedding attire. Since this is the week that Pam and I are charged with buying our wedding outfits, I thought I would bring this up.

The problem is that people don’t get dressed up anymore. When I was a boy, for example...men wore suits. Everywhere. All the time. Catch any episode of Leave It To Beaver and you’ll find old Ward sitting in his recliner reading his evening paper...still wearing his suit.  I mean, the dude has worked eight hours, come home, had dinner, listened to Beaver’s latest travails for half and hour, and now he finally gets a minute to read his paper and he’s still wearing the suit he put on 14 hours ago! Occasionally, he would let his freak flag fly by taking off his jacket and replacing it with a sweater, but never once would he dare remove his tie. Church? No man in his right mind would show up at the Lord’s house without a suit. There was even a term for this dress code...your Sunday Best. Now, the only time you see suits on guys is when somebody dies, or at a downtown law office...which is kind of the same thing.

Now, I don’t think this is entirely a bad thing. I’ve never been comfortable in suits. I have a half dozen of them in my closet in various stages of fashionable-ness. But the problem with the decline of the dress suit is when it’s time to dress up for something like a wedding. What’s appropriate? What would be considered too dressy? You don’t want to show up looking like a pallbearer, or worse, a lawyer!

Of course, picking out a suit for the father of the groom is child’s play compared to the land mine-strewn landscape of mother of the groom dresses. I mean that decision has more psychological undertones, emotional moving parts and status trap doors than Donald Trump’s Twitter feed. So, I don’t envy my wife this week. I just need to make the proper choice. Something casually dressy. 

Here’s what I’m thinking...

I’ve always had a secret desire to buy a seer sucker suit. It’s cool, southern, and makes a statement...I know I’m supposed to be dressed up for this event, but in my heart I’d rather be in jeans and a t-shirt, so here I am following the letter of the law but being quietly defiant. Admit it, when you’re attending a serious event, which guy do you think is most likely carrying a flask? The guy in the seer sucker suit, that’s who! The thing that has always held me back from going full seer sucker is the fact that in my mind these are old guy suits...even this absurdly handsome model has gray hair! But, now that I’m 60, that hurdle has been jumped, so maybe it’s time. Of course, this seer sucker thing only works if it doesn’t conflict with the official palette of colors assigned to the Dunnevant-Upchurch wedding, or so I am told. Ultimately I will buy only the suit that meets with the approval of my wife, and I am grateful, not resentful of this fact. Having the expert input of Pam Dunnevant assures me that when I show up at the event nobody will be whispering, What the heck was he thinking??

Lucy’s Latest Lunacy

It has not been a great 30 Days for Lucy the Lunatic. May featured record breaking amounts of rain along with accompanying thunder and lightening, which sends our girl into bouts of emotional and psychological torment. During these storms there are only two locations in our house that offer even the slightest fig leaf of security...the small gap between our sofa and coffee table, and the space between the pillows on our bed. Generally speaking, around ten minutes before the arrival of a storm, Lucy will deposit herself in one of these safe spaces to ride out the horror. When the storms occur in the middle of the night, Pam and I will be awakened by the sudden presence of Lucy, jamming her nose as far under the space between our pillows as possible. Then, our bed is transformed into what feels like one of those vibrating beds in cheap motels where you pop a quarter into the box for five minutes of...well, of...never mind. Anyway, Lucy’s entire body endures one shaking wave after another until the storm passes. Occasionally, we will find evidence the next morning of urinary malfunction in usually obscure locations.

But, Lucy’s fear of thunderstorms is not what this blog is about. No, no...Lucy’s psychoses are much deeper and varied than that. Her new thing is her bizarre mealtime ritual. It started several months ago for no apparent reason that either of us can think of. Out of nowhere she started being spooked by her food bowl, or something. Pam experimented with several new locations for the terrifying bowl and finally settled on a weird location that allows her to eat while looking out the windows of the back door. This particular view seemed to cure the jitters. But, a new pathology has now arrived on the scene whereby she refuses to eat until at least one of us, ideally both of us are in a seated position. Yes, you heard that right. Lucy now requires a rapt audience in order to eat.

Ok...here’s the thing. I have had dogs literally all of my life, and the one thing they have all had in common was a combination of voracious appetite and atrocious manners. You’ve all seen it...every meal you give your dog they act like they haven’t eaten in weeks, kibble flying all over the place as they inhale the entire bowl in five seconds! Lucy, on the other hand, acts like she’s doing us a favor by eating. She will pause grandly and gaze down upon her kibble with barely concealed contempt, then let out a plaintive sigh of resignation before daintily placing a single morsel into her mouth. Then she takes a leaisurely stroll to the nearest rug where she deposits the morsel, as if inspecting it for defects, before finally taking it up again, reluctantly. Then there’s an indifferent return to the food bowl, one more disappointed inspection, and finally she will partake. In what I consider to be deliberate defiance, she almost always leaves a couple of morsels in the bottom of the bowl just to let us know of her official ambivalence. And now, she is insisting that we both sit down while she eats. 

If Lucy were a person, she would be our 10th grade teenage daughter!!