Book Review: The Opposite of Spoiled by Ron Lieber. HarperCollins, 2015. 320pp.           We all have a voice in our head that talks about money. For some it’s the haunting voice in D.H. Lawrence’s story “The Rocking-Horse Winner”—the voice saying: “There must be more money! There must be more money!” The children hear it when the elaborate and splendid toys came at Christmas while their parents struggled unsuccessfully to maintain their expensive lifestyle. The voice was an inaudible but palpable anxiety about money and always needing more. The title of Lawrence’s story comes from the horse on which their young son, Paul, rocks madly while hearing…

My father told me years ago that understanding the base of a person’s logic makes a difference. For instance, if someone believes that two plus two equals five, then it is perfectly logical for them to believe that two plus three equals six. It’s not their logic that is wrong, but their starting point. I might say the same about Dan Pallotta’s book,Charity Case. The author’s logic makes sense but his basic assumptions are flawed.Charity Case is a valuable contribution in many ways but begins with a creed that is not only inaccurate but unnecessary and will alienate a constituency Pallotta will later need. The book begins with a few…

We’ve just witnessed the most heroic thing you will see this weekend because the biggest challenge in Mike’s life is leaving a podium. Wow. His fingerprints are actually – the nails – are still dug in here. I had forgotten about that purpose-driven, the Rick Warren column. Actually, having spent a couple days, few hours with you. I’m going to do not a purpose-driven life, but the chauffeured-driven life, which I think…I knew that one wouldn’t work. Wouldn’t work as well. First of all, it’s a great pleasure. Mike is one of my dear friends. Our relationship started when I would go to the Philadelphia Spectrum, where Mike was the…

I can imagine Zoltan J. Acs waking up one recent morning to read the news that Harvard has embarked on a history making capital campaign to raise $6.5 billion by 2018 with almost half of that being targeted for university based research and development. “The Harvard campaign is critical to the university’s ability to fund important priorities going forward, but it is also an opportunity to redefine Harvard and higher education more broadly.”  This is in addition to Stanford’s successful $6.23 billion campaign.   “To remain competitive, universities have to launch campaigns like this,” said Roger Benjamin, president of the Council for Aid to Education, a New York nonprofit organization that…

When my father died last year right before the conference I was named the executor of the estate.  Like many executors before me, I had read some articles, browsed through a book and made a file on what my responsibilities were.  Frankly, I didn’t pay much attention because the day was always going to be a little further away.  So, even though I had a file and some basics in mind none of that prepared me for the actual work required of me for the next full year.  I expected a certain amount of paperwork, certificate copying, distribution of assets, tedious legal process, a quick cruise through probate and a…

He sat down, paused before he spoke and then said, “It’s too much for me to give thanks. I cannot be thankful for this.  I will never be thankful for this.” He and his wife had lost their son and someone with the best of intentions had quoted Paul’s instructions to the church in Thessalonika, “Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus.” Then was not the time to say, “Paul did not say be thankful for everything – but thankful in everything.”  Yet, that is what I thought about for days afterwards.  Paul says, literally, eucharisto, in everything and in…

We came to Tyler 30 years ago.  Not long after we arrived, I had the privilege to meet and know men and women who had carried public and charitable responsibility in this community for a long time and did so until they died. Men like James and Wilton Fair. I don’t know if all of them would have described it this way but to me they had a call to this community.  They had wealth and they had an ingrained sense of caring for others. They had allowed this community to have a claim on their lives.  Allowing others to have a claim on your life is what money is…

I seriously thought about starting this introduction with “In the beginning there was Roberta” but realized the better part of that line had been taken.  However, it would still be true in that Howard and Roberta have been a part of The Gathering from the very beginning.  It was long before she was on the cover of magazines or asked to give distinguished lectures on art, architecture, culture and beauty.  She was candid and outspoken in her many opinions about everything.  Some chalked that up to her marrying into wealth that allowed her to say things she might not have said earlier.  They were wrong.  She’s always said what she…

Tribute to my mother. This week I was in East Tennessee or what we know as Appalachia.  It has been from the beginning one of the poorest parts of our country. In fact, it is actually famous for its poverty. My mother, Mary Alice Swann, was born in Smith County, Tennessee in the same town as Al Gore. Their stories could not have been more different. My mother’s family were, as we say, dirt poor. Until they moved to Nashville they lived in a shack with a wood burning stove and an outhouse. My grandfather Pap was a house painter and a hopeless alcoholic. My grandmother was hard because she…

Being asked by the family to offer these words is a gift not unlike welcoming my own children into the world. I feel as if I have been handed the precious life of Elizabeth for a moment and been honored to hold and care for her briefly as if she were my own – and then will hand her back to her family and to God. In John 12:24 Jesus says, “Listen carefully: Unless a grain of wheat is buried in the ground, dead to the world, it is never any more than a grain of wheat. But if it is buried, it sprouts and reproduces itself many times over.…