Eulogy for Gerry Dunlap June 12, 2024 The Apostle Paul says in Philippians: “I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.” Many years ago I taught junior high school. One day a student asked me, “Mr. Smith, what is a eulogy?” I told him it was a time when we say…

I was asked to respond to some questions about the changing role of technology, artificial intelligence and social media for a panel. How do you think AI as a whole could transform our lives and how we solve social problems together? There will always be the benefits of new technology – the hammer, the wheel, the printing press, telephone, computer, and now artificial intelligence. For the moment I prefer to call AI accumulated information as it does not meet the standard definition of intelligence. Intelligence is about understanding and making judgements based on reason. AI cannot do that. It can connect dots of information it has scraped from millions of…

I was invited to make some remarks to a group of ministers to senior adults. I organized it around five questions for them.   I am almost 78 years old and five years ago stepped aside as the leader of my third non-profit organization. People ask me how I spend my time now and it feels like what they are really asking is how do you fill up all the vacancy and empty space in your life? How do you use your time between getting up and going back to sleep now that the productive part of your life is done and you are coasting to the finish? In that…

In 2015, I wrote a blog titled, “This Is War” and the position I wanted to refute was Christian advisors, community foundations and organizations promoting the perspective that leaving wealth to children was not in the best interests of the parents or the children. This was a common quote: “Leaving children with wealth is like leaving them a case of psychological cancer.” You could not trust your children or you loved them too much to make them wealthy so it would be better to leave the money to an organization that could be trusted or establish a firm sunset for the foundation. Anyone but your children.   No one ever…

Like most of us here tonight, I have read for years the story of Moses at the burning bush and his reluctance to return to Egypt and bring the people of Israel out of slavery and into the Promised Land.  “What if they do not believe me or listen to me and say, ‘The Lord did not appear to you’?” Then the Lord said to him, “What is that in your hand?” “A staff,” he replied. The Lord said, “Throw it on the ground.” Moses threw it on the ground and it became a snake, and he ran from it.  Then the Lord said to him, “Reach out your hand…

In 1977,  it was not common to hear a young man in his 30’s considering giving away a fortune.  But, there we were, all three of us in our thirties having dinner at Nieman Marcus in downtown Dallas, the flagship store, talking about just that. Seven years passed before we had dinner again but this time it was more than musing.  That same young man, Bob Buford, had decided to act on his intentions and invited me to join him in the adventure.  Who in their right mind would say no to that?  Well, here is a snapshot of me at my desk after six months.  No one mentioned what…

What is now The Gathering began in 1985 with five of us who had an interest in Christian philanthropy. For the first several meetings of our small retreats at The Cedars in Arlington we had a strict rule.  There would be no presentations from non-profits.  In fact, no non-profit leaders would be invited to attend. No fund-raisers.  No one sitting in on the fringes.  Like any boys club, we took a blood oath almost as literal as Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn did: “Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer swears they will keep mum about this and they wish they may Drop down dead in their tracks if they ever Tell…

People are often unreasonable, irrational, and self-centered.  Forgive them anyway. If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives.  Be kind anyway. If you are successful, you will win some unfaithful friends and some genuine enemies.  Succeed anyway. If you are honest and sincere people may deceive you.  Be honest and sincere anyway. What you spend years creating, others could destroy overnight.  Create anyway. If you find serenity and happiness, some may be jealous.  Be happy anyway. The good you do today, will often be forgotten.  Do good anyway. Give the best you have, and it will never be enough.  Give your best anyway. In the final…

There has been a recent flurry of articles by the World Bank, Nick Kristof in the New York Times, Andrew Mayeda in Benchmark and others about the progress in the elimination of extreme poverty in the world. Of course, there have been other articles, notably Jason Hickel writing in Al Jazeera that these reports have been intentionally distorted and based on faulty data. Whatever the case for the success or failure of poverty elimination, there is more to the story than the reduction of material poverty. When the only measure of success is the difference between a $1.25 and $1.95 daily income we have too narrow a focus on the…

The imaginative Bible teacher requires a particular sort of humility. Whereas the writer or the poet or artist can create with an almost totally free hand, the Bible teacher does not write the text. So, teaching comes with limitations that frustrate some and in their desire to be creative and not repeat what has been heard over and over again, they fall into the trap of distorting the text in ways never intended. They are fascinating but they mislead and instead of using imagination they create fictions. We know that Rembrandt, Picasso and Van Gogh all painted over their own masterpieces and produced two masterpieces on the same canvas. But…