Steve Martin is known most widely for his early work in absurd comedy but he has also evolved into a serious art collector playwright and fine writer. In his memoir, “Born Standing Up” he recounts the death of his father. Growing up in Waco, Texas, Steve remembers his feelings toward his father as “mostly ones of hatred” as his father was cold and stern. He was critical of Steve’s career. and their relationship was awkward at best: “In his early 80s my father’s health declined further and he became bedridden. There must be an instinct about when the end is near as we all found ourselves gathered at my parents’home in…

Studies and predictions about the transfer of wealth from parents to their children started popping up around the turn of the century. In their 1999 study, “The Millionaires and the Millennium: New Estimates of the Forthcoming Wealth Transfer and the Prospects for a Golden Age of Philanthropy,” Paul Schervish and John Havens at the Center on Wealth and Philanthropy at Boston College had financial planners scurrying to prepare investment plans to accommodate an estimated $41 trillion that would be passed over 50 years. For the next several years, investment firms rolled out products that would absorb the wave of assets. I heard about “pre-mortem” consultants hired by children to negotiate…

Michael Gerson mentioned on Facebook this week that he is re-reading Graham Greene’s “The Power and The Glory.” It’s the story of a failed priest on the run from the police. He is friendless, homeless and searching for some sense of purpose in his life. Hiding from his calling and decisions he has made in the past he is ironically incapable of not being a priest and ministering to people – even at the risk of his life. Tormented by his own sense of guilt he spends the whole of the novel both in flight and in pursuit. It is so much like the life of Jonah. I don’t know if…

  Last month the latest report by the Johnson Center on Millennial Giving (http://www.nextgendonors.org/) was released and is both interesting and helpful. However while there are clearly significant differences in the generations ” I think it is a mistake to assume that generational differences are the most important or determinative in describing donors. There are too many other factors.  While the book was written for development professionals ” the insights are invaluable in helping gain a better understanding of your own giving as a donor and how to be more effective in your own unique style.  Doing Good Makes Sense. Communitarians give because it makes good sense to do so.…

  Two nights ago I posted an article on Christian music that included this quote from Joe Bob Briggs: "Christian music is bad songs written about God by white people." My friend Steven Garber at the Washington Institute messaged me back with a piece he Steve Turner and Charlie Peacock had done at the Art House in Nashville. It began with the question “Can you sing songs shaped by the truest truths of the universe ” but in a language that the whole world can understand?” In the course of our back and forth” Steven passed along this observation from writer Walker Percy "Bad books always lie. They lie most…

  There has probably never been a time like today in our country for both the creation of wealth and non-profits and social entrepreneurs.We sometimes think this trend is new but it is an ancient pattern.Often you see this pattern go together “and at other times one follows the other. One of the reasons for the founding of monastic communities was that a generation of young people was turning away from the excesses of their wealthy parents.During the 12th and early 13th centuries there was something of an explosion of both wealth and the formation of informal orders within the Catholic Church. One of those” the Franciscans grew and spread…