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So Long, Grandma GG

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Grandma GG died on the twelfth day of Christmas, 2017.

In Catholic tradition, the following day is the Epiphany, the feast of the three kings, commemorating the manifestation of Christ to the Magi. So, the original “12 Days” are not a children’s memory and forfeit game turned into a Christmas carol.

And yet, when a friend reminded me of the day, the first memory I had was of Timothy and Lucas singing that song in the shower of our ski lodge hotel, over the holiday. If there’s anything more beautiful than the sound of children singing it’s the sound of my children singing.

When we drove home, Timothy had the gifts of each day of the song memorized. Then, like my father did so many times, I changed things around on them. To show the boys they’re not stuck with the official version of things, I made up new gifts for the first four days and sang a new carol.

By the time we were done, our version had 12 strummers strumming, three french breads, two lady bugs, and a fish swimming in a glass jar.

Charlie’s Option ‘C’

It was a small change to a lovely song. But, small changes like that, initiated by my father, were at the core of why he and mom lived such an extraordinary life. The conventional was just one possible starting point for my father; a brilliant engineer certain that no one had the whole game figured out. As he would often say, that made running with the herd a most dangerous proposition.

As my cousin Keith put it, if there were options A and B for everyone else, my father had an option C to consider. Tell him that there’s two sides to every coin and he’d probably smile and point out that you missed the third side. You forget about the edge. That’s technically a third side.

I can just hear him saying, “Remember, Terry, nobody’s got the whole game figured out. The instant someone tells you they do, ‘Run!’.”

And yet, for all his insights, when visiting with them in Tokyo my father said the reason they were able to travel everywhere and do such fun things was because of my mom. He just went to work every day, as usual. Mom took care of the blizzard of details it took the relocate, setup another house, figure out the local markets, and pay the bills.

The Shenanigans Continue …

The Shenanigans of the Gillespie’s, the McNally’s, and now the Arbelaez’, continue with the next generation. We sing the beautiful songs given us with the audacity to change the lyrics. The melody eventually goes, too, and the composers are forgotten. New life sings its own version of ancient songs. And nothing but the Grace of God is so assured that it should be immune from re-examination or re-canted with the joy of a personal imprint.

In Everything I Do

I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy… in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture…1

And so it was that my brother and I were able to study music and architecture. Everything I do is on the shoulders of my parents, and on my knees, for the glory of our Father in heaven. The sacrifices they made, and the small changes to the norm my dad would always make, compounded into an enveloping blanket of possibilities my brother and I had the luxury of taking for granted.

An Artful Life

Possibilities are the breeding ground of creativity. The fruit of creativity is an artful life and, hopefully, the appreciation of the liberties that make it possible.

My parents were always there to help. Only because I was so sure of that, did I rarely need it. It was a premise in our relationship and bestowed a freedom to compose an extraordinary life. May the compositions of Isabel and I be a worthy extension of their legacy.

The Highest Privilege

When friends used to ask about my childhood I didn’t know what to say. What’s the opposite of a shitty childhood? Whatever that is, that was us.

Such discussions now involve notions of privilege and what that might be. From my parents, I know the answer: the highest earthly privilege, of all, is to be born into a household with a loving father and mother.

I can’t say it enough, and can’t stop thinking it: everything I do only makes sense when viewed as an extension of them. While others may try to discard their heritage, or apologize for it, I will spend the rest of my life being thankful for, and exploring the depths of, my own.

Geraldine Marie Gillespie

An excellent wife who can find?
She is far more precious than jewels.
The heart of her husband trusts in her,
and he will have no lack of gain.
She does him good, and not harm,
all the days of her life.2

My father found this in my mother, Geraldine Marie Gillespie. And because their lives reflected its importance, I eventually found the same in Isabel. So, Isabel was the perfect one to give my mother her most favorite title of all: Grandma GG.

It was a name quickly conjured to avoid confusion with Martha, the other grandmother living in our house at the time. And, though the role of grandmother is rarely exceeded in stature or importance, it was a role my mother never expected to play. But, as I was to learn in the hours after her death, there was even more than that bundled up into Grandma GG’s favorite title.

A Catatonic Epiphany

For the last three years of her life, I’d prayed to know the purpose of my mother’s increased suffering, being confined to a bed for the past 10 years, and even losing her words.

Then, as befitting the 12th day of Christmas, I was lead on the track of a catatonic epiphany to a small group meeting at our church. Perhaps only around other believers could something as heart-warming, yet terrifying, be revealed: that my mother’s highest purposes in life were identical to her work, which was, in turn, identical to her highest calling. All three of these cherished insights lined up into one for Grandma GG. Her purposes, work, and calling were, all three, the same. They were inextricably bound up, and poured into, her three great loves: my father, my  brother, and me.

The rareness of all three of these lining up —something that perhaps only a wife and mother of her time were afforded — is partly why I missed them.

A Mother’s Grief

Seen from that vantage point, it became more understandable that she had the strokes that put her in the bed shortly after my father, and then brother, died. Two-thirds of her life purposes had just left the planet. Her husband and firstborn son, were gone.

For those who haven’t walked that path, there’s no way to comprehend the loss. What I know of it are from the sounds of her weeping over my brother; cries I’d often wished could become unheard as they resonated through every dimension in a way that only a mother’s grief could.

Mom held on, in part, to save me from what she felt that day. She couldn’t bear for the same to happen to me.

A Secret Project

Maybe every child has a feeling their parents are working on a secret project that’s never revealed or talked about. You know they’re up to something; you just don’t know what it is. Then, one day, you realize that the secret project they’ve been working on, all this time, is you.

Every grocery bag, pair of sneakers, uniform, piano lesson, field trip, monthly check for Catholic school … and every drop-off and pick-up and late-night vigil waiting for you to come home, is one more stitch in the patchwork of a quilt they’re making, but don’t expect to use, for their own warmth. They’re sowing the soil, and tending to trees for decades, in hopes that it will bear the most delicious fruit the world has ever seen. And yet they’re perfectly content to die having never taken a bite.

The Unbearable Absence of Reservation

We pour ourselves out for our children, not because they’ve earned it, but because our love for them comes with an almost unbearable absence of reservation. It’s the only fitting metaphor we have of God’s love for us.

What Christ did for all, we seek to do for our children, within the realms of our limited authority: To guide them away from error and onto the path of their most complete fruition. And when they fall short, to plead forgiveness for their youthful trespasses and cancel any records of debt that might stand against them with legal demands.

Charlie’s 10% Solution

My dad said their marriage worked because he put 10% of everything he had into it. My mom wholeheartedly agreed with him on that, adding that the other 90% came from her.

A New Plague

The late 70’s were a tough time for my parent’s marriage. A new legal option of No-fault divorce was creeping across the country like a plague, leaving broken families in its wake. The machinery of separation was put into motion with a 9-syllable incantation: “ir·rec·on·cil·a·ble dif·fer·ences” were not corporate mergers gone awry, but a legal pretense for parents to live in separate houses.

Neutrality & Fairness

I remember my mom saying they couldn’t handle being Switzerland with all the couples they’d known who’d become separate and warring nations; the kids pulled around new artificial zones that, unlike the Vietnam news stories on TV, were anything but demilitarized.

So, there were arguments, and dishes thrown, and frustrations we felt, but didn’t understand. That’s how my brother and I knew that, just because we were born into it, didn’t make our parent’s marriage a guarantee.

We also learned that people playing fair with each other was a recipe for disaster; that it took a lot more than mere fairness to be happy. Only when they became resigned to giving more than received did a peace, that surpasses all understanding, come to our house.

Wedding Song

As sung in the wedding folk song, popular at the time:

Woman draws her life from man and gives it back again.

But, the circle of the exchange in those lyrics spins faster than the inputs of the wedded couple. It’s that invisible extra energy the songwriter is asking about in the question, “Do you believe in something, that you’ve never seen before?”.

Grief is the Precious, Cut Short

I’ve learned from the deaths of my immediate family that the greatest cause for grief is when something precious is cut short of its expected completeness. And though I grieve for my mother, and still for my father and brother, I’m unable to view their lives as having been cut short; each for their own reasons.

Dad’s Bucket List(s)

In a conversation with my dad, a year before he died, he told me that when he was 10-years-old he made a list of things he’d dreamed of doing. By his mid-40’s he’d gotten to the end of that list, and made another. By the time of our conversation, he said he’d checked everything off that second list, as well.

The memory of that exchange was particularly comforting when he died, unexpectedly, a year later. How could his life be viewed as having been cut short if, by his own handwritten lists, he’d completed everything he’d set out to do?

Uncle Tim

When my dad’s brother came to visit, last year, I told him that story. He said he felt the same way and that his number was 75. Seven months later, nine days after Grandma GG, my Uncle Tim met his number.

Mom’s Unexpected Life

As for my mother, she never expected to get to do most of the things she, and my father, did. She raised two boys, traveled the world, got her high school diploma (about the same time we did), worked for a while to see what that was like, learned ikebana painting with the Japanese, and played golf with my father to her hearts content in their dream home, designed by their son, on the 5th hole of a private golf course in South Carolina. All of this, with her husband who’d retired at the age of 53.

It wasn’t until after my father died that I realized that Grandma GG was another artist in the family. Her opinions on logos, and colors, and ideas for business names, were always refreshing. And the grandchildren on her lap were the vitamins she took for her last eight years.

The fullness of Grandma GG’s life is the license we have to limit our grief to that of a life, not cut short, but fully lived.

Death ≠ Life Incomplete

A life is not devoid of purpose, nor incomplete, due merely to the fact that it has ended. If that were so, there is no hope for any of us, nor has there ever been.

I know this is not so, if only because of the memories I draw from them. My father may have helped me make more decisions, after his death, than before it. And though I believe it to be a mere fractal of a larger truth, there’s an undeniable life continued, here and now, in our memories, alone.

They Don’t Feel Gone

Staring at the bed of all the photos of my family it doesn’t make sense that they’re all gone. They don’t feel gone. After another series a fleeting moments, Isabel and my photos will be added to the pile. Then, it will be Timothy and Lucas staring at our pictures with this same odd feeling.

Memory is Proof of Life

Among the dead are those whose memories and past deeds are still having more of an impact on my life, today, than anyone currently living, ever will. So, the separation of who is here, and who is gone, becomes a more ambiguous proposition with each passing year.

After all, if memory of the once living is of no importance, then why punish a murderer? The victim’s gone and justice won’t bring them back. But, murderers are punished because the living will not put their memories away. The bell of the victims life will not be un-rung. And neither will the absence of justice be forgotten, or un-factored in to the righteous behavior of the survivors.

I believe the soul is sanctified by the Holy Spirit, and continues a new life in the unseen realm, as the body falls away. Still, unbelievers can take comfort in the memories of loved ones who’ve died, and the life contained in their memory of them.

Outer Limits

Many are grappling with end-of-life care issues, these days. The beginning of our story, and how four generations came to live under one roof, is in Why I Live with my In-Laws and Living With My In-Laws (One Year Later).

In the first few years, not a day went by without a citation of the fourth commandment, in one direction or another. We eventually got the hang of it in seeing the final years of Grandma GG’s life through. Her care was part of our purpose, while she was in the final stages of completing hers. We were like mirrors pointed at each other, each unaware of the reflections compounding into infinity.

Through the Eyes of Visitors

But, our children, and others, saw those reflections.

Every once in a while we’d get an outside perspective on our lives, through the eyes of visitors. It was like having a puppy and a friend stops by, two months later, and breaks the news to you that what you’re calling a puppy has become a dog.

As friends and family passed on condolences, one of the first things they’d say is how wonderful it was that Grandma GG spent her final years with her family.

They’re right, it was wonderful. But, it was just as wonderful to spend the long beginning of my life, with her.

End of the Rainbow

In retrospect, the struggles I had in caring for my mom were like a man complaining about a rock in his shoe while walking to the end of a rainbow. The treasure, waiting to be collected, is more than one house can hold. Part of that treasure is the proof that Grandma GG’s highest calling was met, so that even 1/3rd of its fulfillment was more than enough to reap for the care she needed.

Another part is that our boys woke up, everyday of their four and eight-year lives, with a grandparent living in the same house.

“God’s law is an unspeakably good and precious thing, and to live within it is to live the life that is eternal. To be sure, (God’s) law is not the source of rightness, but it is forever the course of rightness.3

The Potency of Holiness

Our bodies know the differences between darkness and light better than our minds. While surprised that a candle has lit up the whole gymnasium, our bodies have already started walking towards it.

Light is more than the absence of darkness. And holiness is more than the absence of sin. If sin is the drum of water we drink from, then holiness is the teaspoon of bleach that makes the whole drum potable.

Her Inheritance

My moms inheritance is in answering her highest calling. It was poured out into her three men, into her new family, and also for those who saw her race, finished well.

And like the story of the thief on the cross, who had no hope before that fateful day, may the retelling of her story inspire other families to stick together and light their own candles with the fire within. And may a spoonful of that be credited to the account of Grandma GG’s inheritance in the Kingdom of God.

In Our Muscle Memory

Grandma GG is still in our muscle memory and in the walls of the house. While writing these words, I’ve kept the room monitor on in my office in case Grandma GG needs something. Isabel and I still hear the bell she used to ring, and the pitch of her voice, calling for something. We’re still quiet on the phone so as not to wake her, and we keep feeling the need to break away from dinners with friends, because mom’s been alone for too long.

The Smirk on Lucas’ Face

Grandma GG did not abide orders or directives. There was a certain way she’d purse her lips and stare when orders were detected. That’s when you knew there wasn’t a thing in the world that could move her. You’d just settled the matter; nothing would move her until she was good and ready.

One day, while giving an order to our two-year-old, I looked over to see something that brought chills of deja’vu. Lucas had the same eyes, and curled up smirk, I’ve seen on my mothers face for fifty years. I knew immediately the battle lines were drawn, and he had the upper hand. My mother’s will-not-abide smirk had been transmuted right onto Lucas’ defiant face.

I can only imagine the deep-rooted pig-headedness originating from ancient celtic roots that is now a weapon in his arsenal. And, boy, it’s a good one. Grandma GG would love knowing that she had left her Lucas Michael, so well-armed. As foreboding a look as it is, I love seeing her smirk on Lucas’ face. Even though I know what I’m in for.

Timothy’s Willy Wonka House

“When you love someone you go to the ends of the earth for them.”
— Aunt Bernie

Timothy doesn’t have Grandma GG’s defiant smirk. What he inherited from Grandma GG is waking up for the first eight years of his life with grandparents living in the same house. He has the cookies and candy in her drawer, her birthday gifts, the coca-cola Santa Claus kisses, and grandparents’s day at school.

When watching the original Willy Wonka, Timothy saw nothing odd in all the grandparents in the bed. To him, it was a matter-of-fact depiction of the way all families live. Families take care of one another, come what may, and no one is left behind.

Conclusion

Prior to my mom’s passing, Isabel had never experienced the death of an immediate family member. Now, as a reluctant veteran, perhaps she’d agree that death, compared to life, is a simple thing.

Death doesn’t give meaning to life; it just imposes a deadline on the project to perfect the soul our bodies are bound to, for a while. The body gives out, and the soul is released, to forever be what it became under the care of our earthly stewardship.

The greatest gift of life is the chance to shape, and try to perfect, the state of our immortal souls.

May we prepare for death like a bel canto singer navigates through the passagio of the upper-middle voice; switching over to a new set of involuntary muscles so the voice may gracefully ascend into its highest range.

But, She’s Ours!

Two weeks after she died, Lucas asked, “When are they going to send Grandma GG back?”

“What do you mean, Lucas?”, Isabel asked.

“When are they going to be done working on her body … (counting on his fingers) … “1-day, 2-days, 3-days, 4-days, 5-days?”

“She’s not coming back, Lucas. We have to go see her.”

“But, she’s ours!”, he said.

Then, last week, Lucas asked the same question. When Isabel told him Grandma GG was gone he yelled, “But, she’s ours! Why can’t they fix her body and send her back?!” before crying for five minutes; an eternity for a four-your-old.

Yes, honey. She’s ours.

And we will never forget her, nor the last time we saw her, this morning as she prepared for her journey and waved goodbye and slipped the surly bonds of earth to touch the face of God.4

Songbirds, P.S.

Alright, mom. These words hardly begin to summarize your life. But, you’d be happy with a few highlights in your son’s voice. It must have been awesome to get out of that bed and stretch out into a walk!

Remember when Dad borrowed Wendell’s RV and we camped and drove across the whole country? Dad wore out those Fleetwood Mac tapes and almost killed us on the mesa verde mountain curves.

My least favorite song is the one I can’t get out of my head. It reminds me of you and dad. You guys are together, now, like you imagined for all those years watching the golf channel. Every time that bell rings it feels like you’re still here. I’m glad, we’re glad, that, “For you, there’ll be no more crying.”

For you, the sun will be shining.
And I feel that you’re with us
And It’s alright, I know it’s right.

My songbirds are singing, like they know the score.
And I love you, I love you, I love you, like never before.

I love you, mom, dad, and Tim, like never before.

So long, Grandma GG.

  1. Paraphrasing a quote from John Adams. ↩
  2. Proverbs 31, ESV. ↩
  3. Dallas Willard, “The Divine Conspiracy” ↩
  4. Adaptation of Reagan on the Challenger tragedy, 1/26/86. ↩
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On Idolizing the Bible

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On Idolizing the Bible

Commentary on “How the Bible Became an Idol” by Paul Rosenberg

I’ll refer to the author as Rosenberg to distinguish him from the apostle Paul.

“Again I am raising a difficult subject, but again, it’s something that needs to be said. And my title is true. The Bible – the holy book of more or less all Christians – has become an idol. And yes, I do mean idol as in “false god.”

A book, no matter how good, remains a book and should be treated as a book. A deity is something far different.

Not every Christian uses the Bible as an idol of course, but many millions do – probably a majority in North America – including nearly all of the TV preachers.

The Bible is 66 books with ~40 authors written over ~1500 years put between one cover and referred to as “a book”. None of the books are deities nor are they above, or outside of, Reality.

A Christian may hold the Bible to be the most important “book” in the world but it’s not a substitute for God unless He’s absent from their lives (which is probably the crux of the matter, here).

What is an Idol?

An idol is something you hold above reality.

The Bible uses the word “idol” to refer to that which a man holds above, or in place of, God. Since only that which created Reality could be above (outside, beyond) it, Rosenberg’s use of the word is roughly the same.

A true God – a creator of the universe, for example – should be held above reality, since he created reality. If, however, we hold something else above reality, we make it an idol. A created thing should be considered a part of reality, not held above it.

So, when I say the Bible has become an idol, I mean people hold it above reality, putting it into the position of a god.”

The Bible refers to the gods being worshipped in the OT and NT (represented in stone, wood, or gold idols) as real and created by God.1 These created gods, as well as the Bible, “should be considered to be part of reality, not held above it”.

Not a Book-Based Religion?

As long as the relationships between people and their Creator are replaced (avoided) with rituals we’ll be stuck with the word, “religion”.

“Christianity very clearly did not start as book-based. When Jesus “preached the good news,” he quoted just a small number of scriptures and usually as a necessity, answering people who questioned him. And several of those were of the “you’ve heard it said… but I say” variety. He read a few lines from Isaiah in his hometown synagogue once, but we see very little more than that.

Even the very literate Paul uses Greek poets in his sermons almost as much as Old Testament passages. (He uses some scriptures in his writings.)”

The New Testament refers to the Old Testament 2,572 times including allusions, echoes, citations, and quotations.2 Here’s the total breakout as well as that for Jesus and Paul.

nt_ot

Jesus’ use of the OT is consistent with, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.” (Mt 5:17) One astounding aspect of that fulfillment was His abiding by the laws while supplanting them with grace.4 His scripture was the Septuagint (A Greek translation of the Hebrew canon made in 250 BC.).

While Jesus fulfilled the laws, Paul documented much of that fulfillment in canonical extension, later to become known as the New Testament. Paul’s use of the Septuagint is consistent with writing eight to thirteen of the 27 books of the NT.

Stating the Obvious, Extrapolating the Unnecessary5

Those writing, copying, and assembling books of the New Testament did not, themselves, have access to completed copies. To therefore conclude, somehow, that books not yet written were unimportant to those writing them is to extrapolate the unnecessary after stating the obvious.

In that sense, neither is Judaism a book-based religion. The Old Testament was written and assembled into canon over a period of ~1000 years. It was then translated into Greek to make it accessible to Jews who had been in exile so long they’d lost touch with their own language. Does a project requiring 33 generations to complete imply apathy?

The first Christians valued Christ over everything. Their first independent actions were to spread the word about Him and what He’d just done. They weren’t apathetic about writing things down. A remarkable aspect of the NT is how little time had passed from the actual events to the time the 27 books were written and then assembled into canon. They were documenting what they’d witnessed while simultaneously risking their lives to spread a faith that would become the largest in the world.

I do agree with Rosenberg that the apostles and first Christians weren’t risking their lives for a book (or books) but for what they’d just seen. Also, even without completed copies of what has become the New Testament the early Christians were, no doubt, more effective and consistent than most modern Christians.

Facing the Bible

Those of us who’ve read the book know the laws in the Old Testament that no one follows anymore. We know how the apostles disagreed. But – and this is where idolatry comes in – millions of us pretend that we saw nothing and move on. Or if we’re trying to be very religious, we come up with creative interpretations to resolve the flaws.

Conjuring up “creative interpretations to resolve the flaws” is worse than a waste of time. It degrades integrity and faith. It also avoids some of the best opportunities for spiritual growth.

Do the “Bible is the word of God people” think the Author needs their help in deflecting attention away from weak parts of an otherwise stellar attempt to reach mankind?

The Laws that No One Follows Anymore

I’m no expert on Judaism. Still, I doubt that anyone, other than Jesus and a few prophets and priests, managed to abide by all 613 commandments of the law.

There are orthodox Jews who still believe they must abide by most of the laws. They claim to be excused from the sacrificial laws (159 of the 613) because the temple was destroyed in 70 A.D. But, how were they released from the remaining 454? If they don’t recognize Jesus as their messiah how (and when) did these laws become inactive?

The Apostles Disagreed

The most famous disagreement among the apostles arose when Paul publicly admonished Peter for observing Judaic laws after Jesus had fulfilled them. Bob Deffinbaugh’s exposition of the disagreement, and Peter’s capitulation, is excellent.

Using the Bible to Prove Everything

And let me be clear on this: Trying to prove everything by the Bible is a deviation from actual growth. If you’ve done this for any length of time, you’ve hindered yourself.

Rosenberg may be referring to the often lazy habit of quoting Biblical text as self-proving. To a non-believer this is recursive reasoning. It’s much more effective to quote applicable verses and explain why you think they’re true in the context of the discussion.

A larger point to understand is that the Bible doesn’t contain all knowledge. Such would be like a map with a scale of 1-to-1: accurate but useless. There are no microwaves, jet planes, toasters, CAD design programs, or even hidden codes in every 70th (or whatever) letter predicting the third Reich. Neither does Ezekiel contain the design plans for an alien spacecraft. The sooner a Christian is disabused of the notion that everything is in the Bible, the better.

The Bible is what God deemed sufficient for the realms it covers. It was not intended to be exhaustive. Exhaustive knowledge is a utopian myth. Humans have to work for knowledge just as they have to work to get food from the ground.

Doing, Or Not Doing?

Readers of the book really should know these things. The core of the New Testament – the recorded words of Jesus – require people to do the things he taught. The “Bible as word of God” people, on the other hand, spend endless hours arguing about who Jesus was, comparing scriptures, finding hidden meanings, proving their interpretations right, and proving the interpretations of others wrong. And so they bypass doing.

Though admonished by one commenter to “stick to subjects he knows about”, Rosenberg could just as well be paraphrasing Paul in 1 Timothy 1:3–7:

“As I urged you when I was going to Macedonia, remain at Ephesus so that you may charge certain persons not to teach any different doctrine, nor to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies, which promote speculations rather than the stewardship from God that is by faith. The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. Certain persons, by swerving from these, have wandered away into vain discussion, desiring to be teachers of the law, without understanding either what they are saying or the things about which they make confident assertions.”6

The Sad Part

“The central requirement for any follower of Jesus is to love. Everything else comes second. Jesus not only taught this again and again; he exhibited it in his life. Christians, however, consistently push it aside in favor of other things. (I could tell you stories, but you probably have your own.)”

Indeed, “For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (Ga 5:14)

“The really sad part of this is that the Bible idolaters – or at least a great number of them – do have experience with the divine impulse, of contact or at least innate yearning for a transcendent ultimate. But they never develop these things, because they’re busy idolizing a mere book, following the traditions and commandments of men.“

Jesus condemned the Pharisees for treating the OT in exactly this way. How much worse for a Christian to do the same with the completed Bible?

What’s Rosenberg Getting At?

Rosenberg sees the Bible as a valuable resource. He greatly appreciates the impact that Judeo-Christian ethics have had on western civilization. He believes there’s a creator of the universe distinct from the created. He has a “divine impulse” and “innate yearning for a transcendent ultimate”. So, why would someone so philosophically, though not theologically, aligned with Christianity be frustrated enough to write about Christians using the Bible as an idol?

At the risk of being presumptuous I’ll put into my own words what I think are some of Rosenberg’s points. If doing so would make fellow Christians consider them then it will have been worth the effort:

  • Because of the enormous, yet squandered, human potential of a third of humanity. If a small fraction of that number patterned their thoughts, will, abilities, beliefs, and expectations on the full range of Jesus’ teachings the world would be so dramatically transformed it might be mistaken for heaven.
  • Because millions of Christians who claim Jesus as their role-model either don’t take him seriously enough, or are afraid to discover, let alone implement, the full breadth of His teachings.
  • Because the Book of Acts describes the behaviors and experiences of Christians before there was a Book of Acts. And yet, the first Christians were more Christ-like, with limited access to fragments of text, than modern Christians are with a completed New Testament.

The Christian Difference

Voltaire is credited with saying, “Show me your redeemed life, and I’ll believe in your Redeemer”. And then there’s the rhetorical question that, “If you were jailed for being a Christian would there be enough evidence to convict you?”.

There’s nothing different about people living inconsistently with their own stated beliefs. You can find them in every house and on every street-corner in the world. Christians are supposed to stand out in such a way as there’s no doubt that something is different about them. Why else would anyone care to learn more about their beliefs?

Can we blame non-believers for concluding that a redemption without fruit is no redemption, at all?

The Christian difference occurs in believers who call Jesus a role model and have the courage to act consistency with the goal of becoming more like Him.

That means diving into his teachings and exposing yourself to the full-spectrum of what you find. No picking and choosing what you, or those around you, might be comfortable with. No strip-mining the supernatural out of the events. No arrogant presumptions that God needs your protection of His Bible because someone sent you a list of “flaws” on Facebook.

Set a goal of nothing short of putting on the mind of Christ. “Aim at Heaven and you will get Earth ‘thrown in’: aim at Earth and you will get neither.”7

Faith without Works

Faith without works is trust without transformation. It’s an attempt to be oriented towards the Creator without “power according to his glorious might”. (Col 1:11) In daily life, it’s hope without joy.

Transformation of Character and Supernatural Power

Dallas Willard, speaking on “Being Church” said:

“When the kingdom of God is present, power flows. And what characterize the people of Christ throughout the ages is transformation of character and supernatural power. Those two things always follow. When Jesus brought the kingdom he brought manifestation.”

That’s what the early Christians had and what many of today’s Christians don’t have. That’s what’s at the core of Judeo-Christian ethics that have transformed the world.

The early Christians weren’t risking their lives for unfinished scrolls on parchment or papyrus. And they weren’t risking their lives because Jesus was a smart guy who’d just laid some awesome philosophy on them. They risked their lives to remain true to what they’d just witnessed: Jesus performing miracles all over the place, raising people from the dead and then rising, himself, from being dead. And if that wasn’t enough, walking around and eating meals with them while detailing how He’d just fulfilled their scriptures. It was the resurrected Jesus that told them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”8

In that sense, I agree with Rosenberg, that Christianity is not a book-based religion. It’s a relationship with God centered around His presence in our actual lives. Without transformation of character and supernatural power there will be no great works. But, with them?

The world is yours!9

  1. “My contention is that, if our theology really derives from the biblical text, we must reconsider our selective supernaturalism and recover a biblical theology of the unseen world. This is not to suggest that the best interpretation of a passage is always the most supernatural one. But the biblical writers and those to whom they wrote were predisposed to supernaturalism. To ignore that outlook or marginalize it will produce Bible interpretation that reflects our mind-set more than that of the biblical writers.” Heiser, M. S. (2015). The Unseen Realm: Recovering the Supernatural Worldview of the Bible (First Edition, p. 18). Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press. ↩
  2. Jackson, J. G. (Ed.). (2015). New Testament Use of the Old Testament. Bellingham, WA: Faithlife. ↩
  3. There are four relationships that are used: Citation, Quotation, Allusion, and Echo. These terms are understood as:
    Citation: An explicit reference to scripture with a citation formula (e.g. “It is written,” or “the Lord says,” or “the prophet says”).
    Quotation: A direct reference to scripture, largely matching the verbatim wording of the source but without a quotation formula
    Allusion: An indirect but intentional reference to scripture, likely intended to invoke memory of the scripture.
    Echo: A verbal parallel evokes or recalls a scripture (or series of scriptures) to the reader, but likely without authorial intention to reproduce exact words.
    ↩
  4. “For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.” The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. (2016). (Ro 6:14). Wheaton: Standard Bible Society. ↩
  5. “Yes – as I have said many times in classes: Scholars have a habit of embracing the obvious (redaction) and then extrapolating to the unnecessary (XYZ “universally accepted” critical theory that actually has significant weaknesses – as though there were no other options).” http://drmsh.com/does-higher-criticism-attempt-to-destroy-the-bible/ ↩
  6. The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. (2016). (1 Ti 1:3–7). Wheaton: Standard Bible Society. ↩
  7. C.S. Lewis, The Joyful Christian ↩
  8. The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. (2016). (Mt 28:18–20). Wheaton: Standard Bible Society. ↩
  9. “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. (2016). (Ge 1:28). Wheaton: Standard Bible Society.” ↩
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The Outlier’s Handbook

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The world discards ideas and people that present multiple standard deviations away from “normal”. And yet, Reality has always been phenomenal and noumenal. To ensure you’re able to thrive in the artificial chaos of this generation you’ll need to be an outlier, in many ways. Here’s “The Outlier’s Handbook” to optimize your trajectory.

The Outlier’s Handbook

(Thriving in Artificial Chaos)

Table of Contents

Part 1 — What Outliers?

“Let Your Reasonableness Be Known to Everyone”

  • Ockham’s Razor: Benefits & Limits
  • The Bookends of Normalcy Bias & Cognitive Dissonance
  • “This Book Goes Too Far!”

What Outliers?

  • Outliers Defined
  • You Know You’re An Outlier If . . .
  • Outlier Benefits
  • Outlier Costs
  • Personal Secession and Other Outlier Mindsets

Part 2 — It’s Your World, Boss!

This Is Where You Live

American Roulette

  • The Constitution is Safe!
  • A Bank with Social Services Around It
  • Democracy: The God that Failed
  • The Corporation
  • The Deep State
  • Fascism, American Style

Lifecycle of Nations

  • “Poverty of Nations” Report Card
  • Imperial Collapse Playbook

Danger, Will Robinson!

Technocracy: The Trojan Horse of Global Transformation

Regional Bloc Head Mercantilism

  • Gee, Maybe Nation-States Weren’t So Bad, After All
  • Solutions Amidst Global Fascism
  • Change Happens Like This, Now

Part 3 — The Usual Suspects

Call Them As You See Them

Origin & Story of Rulers and Authorities

  • Angelic Gen 6 View: Consistency & Insights
  • So, Who are “They”?
  • The “New” Face of Evil (Follow the Blood)
  • Long Term Trends Require Spiritual Unity
  • The Minions
  • A Working Structure of Oppression

They Walk Among Us

  • Serial Killers
  • How Can You Spot One?
  • Political Ponerology
  • 7 signs you might be dating one
  • Protection From Them
  • Speech Patterns
  • I, Psychopath
  • The Hidden Cost of Killing Psychopaths
  • Beware the Backlash

Elements of Their World View

Their Goals

  • ”Ye Shall Be As Gods”

Their Methods

  • The Moral Code of Evil
  • Inversion
  • Undisclosed Adhesion Contracts
  • Counterfeit Money
  • Controlled Markets
  • Technocracy
  • Stacked & Interlocking Pyramidical Structures
  • Consolidation
  • Democracy
  • Eugenics
  • Perpetual Fear
  • Long-Term Planning
  • With Methods Like This, Who Needs the Occult?

Part 4 — Acquiring Immunity

Move #1: Acquire Personal Immunity

Personal Matters

  • Purpose is Everything
  • Managing Outlierhood
  • Growth
  • Ethical Time Travel

Health Matters

  • First Do No Harm
  • Clean Food, Water, Air & Place
  • Nutrient Dense Diet
  • Gut Flora, Probiotics and the Second Brain
  • Optimal Exercise
  • Stress & Breathing
  • Life Extension & Blood Sugar Management
  • Sensible Health Insurance
  • Putting It All Together

Spiritual Matters

  • Intelligent or Random Design
  • Oneism (Monism) vs. Dualism
  • CINO’s & MINO’s
  • Christianity Leads To Science, Islam leads to Murder
  • Gandhi or Jesus?
  • Get Blessed
  • Get Uncursed
  • Supernatural Immunity: The Mind & Way Of Christ
  • The Whole Council of God
  • Spiritual Warfare
  • Practical Examples of Spiritually Based Solutions

Locational Matters

  • The Best Place to Live
  • Where Not to Live
  • Should you relocate?
  • The World is Yours
  • The Illusion of Ownership
  • Mobility
  • G.O.O.D Project – Lessons Learned

Family Matters

  • Instrument of Recursive Perfection
  • Spouse Choice
  • Children
  • Extended Family
  • Friends Worth the Title are Family
  • Community

Legal Matters

  • Natural Law
  • The Constitution is Safe!
  • Jurisdiction Matters
  • Where is the Agreement?
  • It’s Hard to Be a Free Man
  • Unraveling Your Liberty

Financial Matters

  • Money is for Immunity & Purpose
  • Business as Extension of Purpose
  • Tax Penalties for Fear and Poor Planning
  • Mortgage Slavery, Repealed
  • Austrian Economics is Real Economics
  • Investments in Immunity & Purpose Have the Highest ROI
  • Asset Protection

Political Matters

  • Terms of “State” & “Government”
  • The Diversion Of Left – Right Thinking
  • The Votes that Matter
  • Optimal Government = Perfect Self-Government
  • The Chief Asset Of The State: Fear & Belief In It’s Necessity
  • All Matters of Liberty Are Related
  • Caveat Viator: Libertarianism and Anarchy are Aspects of a Complete Worldview
  • Govern Thyself Perfectly and Hold Death Dear

Perspective Matters

  • The Most Valuable Commodity on the Planet
  • Philosophers On Donuts
  • Terms of “Freedom” & “Liberty”
  • Equality & Authority
  • Freedom & Structure
  • Peace Does Not Flow From Passivity
  • Proof and Truth
  • You Can’t Beat Everything with Nothing
  • “Let’s Just Split the Difference and Find a Middle Ground”
  • Stoicism
  • The Opportunity in Uncertainty
  • If Swamp Rats Can’t be Exterminated Why Can You?
  • What About America?

Doing Matters

  • Tony Robbin’s Best Trick
  • Think Spiritually, Act Locally
  • Getting Things Done
  • Low Hanging Fruit
  • Tragic Flaws of Conventional Prepping
  • Expert Tips
  • How To Lose Without Fighting (An Outlier’s Not To-Do List)

Part 5 — Ants & The Human Mosaic

Change The World in Four Moves

  • Humans as an Ant Army
  • Move #1: Immunity
  • Move #2: Specialize
  • Move #3: Move
  • Move #4: Cooperate
  • Humanize the Best Attributes of Animals & Insects

Part 6 — Problems: Solutions

Move #2: Specialize & Pick One

Personal Concerns

  • Training Disguised as Education
  • Shortening Attention Spans
  • Media Agitprop

Health Concerns

  • Eugenics
  • Vaccines Vs. Immunity
  • Socialized Medicine
  • Food Fascism & GMOs
  • Fluoridated water
  • Nuclear Waste & Meltdown Disasters
  • Geo-Engineering
  • Disease(s) Cured

Spiritual Concerns

  • Psychopathy
  • Moral Relativism
  • Odious Debt (Slavery)
  • Wars of Conquest
  • False-Flag Attacks
  • End Times Decoder Rings
  • 501c3 Churches

Locational Concerns

  • Agenda 21
  • Scientific Control Grid
  • Power Grid Fragility

Family Concerns

  • The State as Great Father
  • Broken Families

Legal Concerns

  • Patent Squelching
  • Webs of Undisclosed Adhesion Contracts
  • Drug Wars
  • Licensing
  • Militarization of Police
  • Surveillance State
  • Monopoly
  • Bonus: Beating Traffic Tickets

Financial Concerns

  • Fractional Reserve Banking (The Theft of Human Labor)
  • Disappearing Middle-Class A.K.A Unemployment
  • Currency Wars
  • US Bankruptcy
  • World Banking Systems
  • Institutional(ized) Theft
  • Market Manipulation
  • Global Cooling, Warming …Climate Change?
  • Technocracy

Political Concerns

  • Collectivism
  • Globalism

Part 7 — Appendices

  • In Case of Emergency: Read First!
  • Four Ways to Parse Solutions
  • Reading List for Outliers
  • Outlier Creeds
  • Sovereignty & Law
  • Agorist Manifesto in 95 Theses
  • Agorist Road-map Kyle Bennet
  • 100 Ways To Leave Leviathan
  • Wayne & Barry’s Guide for World Rulers
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Why is My Baby Crying?

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I was Mr. Mom the last two weeks for our 11 month old. His grandparents, who usually take care of him during the day, went on vacation. My wife works away from home. I work, too. . . from home. That put me in charge of the day care.

By our third day, together, I was able to figure out what he wanted when he whined or cried. By the fourth day his whimpering stopped because he had what he needed before having to cry about it. Taking care of him was a lot easier than I expected. Sure, he needs lots of attention, but, it was nothing like the awful stories I’ve been hearing all my life. I began to think about why babies have a reputation for being so difficult. And, what’s making it easier for us?

I’m no more a baby expert than any parent. What I’m listing, here, are seven reasons why I think we’re having an easier time with our baby than the stories you’ll hear ‘out there‘. Six of them the parents can control. The last one is luck of the draw:

  1. Schedule
  2. Routines
  3. Company
  4. No Vaccines
  5. Balanced Meals
  6. Vitamins
  7. Disposition

(Note: This article was written in 2009. We’ve since had our second baby who was only a dream when writing this article. One thing that stands out, now, is the implication that a baby crying is, somehow, a disaster–or proof positive of a problem– that must be “solved”. Of course, it could be just that as crying is one of the few ways a baby can communicate . . . anything. What I left out, in my new-father haste to “solve the problem”, was the sheer joy of a baby crying when you “just know” there’s nothing seriously wrong. That’s why I chose the picture for the article of both a man and baby crying with mom laughing: It’s a more accurate portrayal of the wonder and beauty of this time in a  family’s life. I don’t want to live in a world where baby’s don’t cry nor do I mean to contribute to such a world through any words that I may write. What I do want to share with potential new parents is how much easier, and lovely, it is to care for a crying baby than what you may have been told. That’s something I never knew, in large part, because the parents I might have learned from didn’t say. If silence is the worst mistake then I pray the Lord keep me from making it and keep it short and sweet it the process.)

Schedule

Timothy’s on a loose schedule for the entire day. It’s specific in content and sequence. It’s flexible in start time with naps and bottles dropping off depending on his mood and other activities:

  1. Wake up and Bottle – Whey protein (No cows milk) With Vitamins and Fatty Acids.
  2. Play or sleep until . . .
  3. Breakfeast – oatmeal with a scoop of stomach flora
  4. Bath and Change Clothes
  5. Ride in Toy Car around the block
  6. Play, Bottle then Nap
  7. Lunch
  8. Play, Bottle then Nap
  9. Dinner
  10. Play
  11. Bottle (with cereal) then off to bed.

This is easier than it looks. The start times shift up to an hour though always in the same sequence. There’s many benefits for him (And for me, these last two weeks) in being on a schedule like this:

  • Predictability – The baby knows what to expect and so do we. Neither of us is surprised by bath time or when its time to take a knap. The baby begins to expect to receive all the things he needs at a certain time. It becomes easy to figure out what he may be missing if he does start to whine or cry. In other words, it makes the process of elimination for why he’s crying very simple.
  • Planning – All of us know what is happening and when, including the baby. We can plan the times for phone calls, shopping for items needed, visits from friends, working out at the gym or whatever else is going on in our non-baby life.
  • Comforting – It seems to me the schedule removes a certain anxiety from the baby’s mood. His emotions and metabolism ebb and flow as the schedule unfolds. He knows that everything he needs is going to be given to him when its time to be given. And it was comforting for me to know that I was doing everything necessary for him and not leaving anything out.
  • Ease of Transition to Backup Caretaker – This is an awesome benefit! It made it very easy for me to step in as primary caretaker. Timothy’s schedule didn’t change at all when grandmom and grandpop went on vacation. I was clumsy, at first, but knew what and when to do everything and was certain nothing was being left out because of the schedule they gave me. When he cried in the first three days it was because I was not getting him to the next item on his schedule in time or he wanted a bottle instead of a nap, or, vice versa.

Routines

Everything on and off his schedule unfolds in a predictable way:

  • When he’s watching a cartoon he’s sitting in his chair and hears the sound of us in the kitchen making his lunch.
  • He knows its time to take a nap when we’re lying next to him after his morning bottle.
  • He knows he’s going for a car ride when the dog starts barking and we get his toy car ready.

This is real SuperNanny stuff, I know. But, we’re planning on having a second child and I think schedules and routines are going to be key in managing our lives. I also think they’re going to be key in having less babies crying for seemingly no reason. And if they cry, we’ll have good clues as to why.

Company

Not having company makes Timothy cry.

Other than when he’s sleeping he wants company at all times. This will probably change in a few years as he starts reading or playing with more educational toys. But, for now, he wants someone with him at all times. You don’t have to be looking at him or directly interacting with him. You just have to be there with him in the same room.

BTW, Isabel gets a special mention in this category: We get a little crying when switching company from mom to dad and just laughing when switching back to mom. Do we have a mama’s boy issue, here? Mmmmmmmm. Not sure. It only lasts about 45 seconds. We’ll see.

No Vaccines

I think we have a much easier time with Timothy because he wasn’t vaccinated. When he cries its for one of six reasons (See Conclusion, below). He’s not in a constant state of recovery from the three dozen antigens he would have gotten by now. That’s 36 less things to cry about.

For a thorough explanation of why we chose not to vaccinate see my article, Vaccines For My Baby. It was not an easy choice, our first pediatrician ‘fired’ us and it’s been the subject of many discussions. But, I do think it was the right choice and part of that is evident in Timothy’s lack of crying for ‘mysterious’ reasons.

I may be wrong, but, I suspect the reason babies have a reputation for endless and inexplicable crying is because of the dramatic rise in vaccines given to them since 1982. If you’ve got the other six items in this article under control then vaccines may be the crying culprit.

What a tragedy it would be if less people have babies because vaccines make them cry too much. New parents tell would-be parents their nightmarish stories and the endless patience needed to withstand constant crying. The would-be parents don’t have superhuman patience so opt out of having children, at all.

All I’ll say here is that vaccines are not needed to achieve immunization to the diseases for which they’re given. In most cases the fine print actually says that immunization is not guaranteed by the vaccine. The only thing that can guarantee protection from the world’s millions of diseases is the babies’ immune system — the very thing vaccines tend to destroy, not boost.

Balanced Meals

I get grumpy and grouchy when I eat the wrong foods. If I was a baby that would probably take the form of crying. I think its reasonable to say that a baby cries less on a balanced diet. Or, to put it another way: An unbalanced diet is unlikely to lead to less crying.

Blood sugar regulation is key to mood leveling. We’ve taken pains to remove high-glycemic food from our son’s diet. His diet is about 30-40-30 protien-carbs-fats with the carbs being all vegetables and fruits. His bottle is the closest to breast milk in content we could find with no cow’s milk (Whey protein, instead).

From what we’ve seen this seems to be a very balanced diet for him. It levels his blood sugar, keeps him satisfied until the next mealtime and his energy spikes are smooth and natural with no crashing in between.

Vitamins

What’s the opposite of a vaccine? Nutrition that assists rather than destroys your immune system. Vitamins, minerals and fatty acids are all added to Timothy’s morning bottle.

We give him extra vitamin D because babies get much less sun than toddlers. We also give him a baby appropriate liquid multi-vitamin, fatty acids and add a small scoop of beneficial bacteria for his stomach to his morning cereal.

All of this was recommended by our son’s doctor who is a naturopath. The stomach flora is recommended for babies who were breastfed for less than 6 months. The added vitamins are to supplement a babies diet since newborns are not eating a wide variety of food, yet. Bacteria in the stomach enables easier digestion: One less thing to cry about.

Disposition

This one’s luck of the draw.

Most of the parents I’ve talk with say their baby had a definite disposition from the moment they were born. That’s been true for us, as well.

I hear the term ‘colicky’ to describe a baby that cries all the time. Colic is a term for anything that causes abdominal pain in horses (And now babies, too). I’m not sure if this is 100% disposition. It could be one of the other 6 items in this article because the term ‘colicky’ is so broadly used.

I’ll know more about this after we have baby #2. For now I would just say that we did not draw the short straw on this one (Thank God).

Conclusion

Our baby cries for six reasons:

  1. Hungry
  2. Tired
  3. Dirty – Needs diaper change
  4. Company
  5. Pain – Bumps himself while playing
  6. Toy – Got pushed under the furniture or he wants one.

It’s worth saying that these are the only reasons he cries. I wish somebody gave me this list when I was deciding on having children. It’s a much shorter list than I was led to believe by rumours, magazine articles and stories floating around ‘out there’.

Addressing the six things that make our baby cry doesn’t require superhuman patience. It requires a simple rem edy to a short list of causes.

We didn’t draw the short straw on disposition, this time. If Baby #2 is ‘colicky’ at least we’ll have strategies in our control to minimize babys’ (And parents’) crying.

I’m grateful to my wife, mother and father-in-law for putting so many things in place that serve Timothy’s needs before he has to cry about them. He has a schedule, routines, company, is not vaccinated, has balanced meals, gets good nutrition and there is no mysterious or endless crying. None of these things are a big deal, alone. It is a very big deal, however, when they come together and make for a happy baby and a peaceful house.

Copyright © 2014 by Terence Gillespie. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit and a live link are given to McGillespie.com

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In-Laws on Wedding Cake
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Living With My In-Laws (One Year Later)

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It’s been 13 months since we moved my mother in to live with us. She was in a nursing home and it was time to get her out of there. Just prior, my mother and father-in-law moved in to live with us, as well. Five months later Timothy, our first child, was born.

That’s five adults, one baby and two dogs spread accross 4 generations; all living under one roof.

Our house was large enough, we had a baby on the way, needed help taking care of my mother and my in-laws were looking for a way to decrease their expenses and take life a little easier. For more background on the decision and the story of moving in together see Why I Live With My In-Laws.

This is an update to that article.

How’s It Going? – Bottom Line

Extremely well, with unexpected benefits and problems and ways to handle each.

Unexpected Benefits

Part of the ‘unexpected’ benefits are how much I didn’t expect to appreciate the benefits listed in my previous article as much as I do. Division of labor, economies of scale, precious time with family, help with mom. It’s one thing to think about these things and its quite another to experience them in your everyday life.

Grandparents for Timothy

This was just an idea last year when everyone moved in. Now, its real. The reality of having Timothy, Martha, Fabio and my mom together in the same house is truly priceless. There’s only three people on the planet that love Timothy as much as Isabel and I do. Having them all under one roof is a daily unfolding wonder and blessing. Even now I may not fully appreciate all the aspects and advantages to Timothy, and all of us.

And the babysitting? Are you kidding me? Who ya gonna call? Isabel and I haven’t had to contemplate the tradeoffs, risks and worries of leaving Timothy with a stranger as we run errands or just want to spend some alone time, together.

This is way beyond money.

Productivity at Home

I work at home. With an 8 month old baby it’s a miracle I can be so productive out of a home office. Sure, we could drop Timothy off at day care. He spends all day with his grandparents and me in what has to be the ideal environment. Even if we incurred the cost, risk and effort to leave Timothy at day care it would be a downgrade in the quality of his life and ours.

Daughter and Father

Isabel and Fabio have a similar temperament: They’re both quick to react and quick to wind down. At first, we all thought they’d be arguing with each other since they’re so similar. Nope. Turns out they’re so in tune with each other that things get resolved almost before they happen.

Daughter and Mother

Isabel and Martha don’t have the same tempermant. But, they are both very feminine and give ideas to each other in a non-competitive way. They may not admit this but I think they motivate each other to do more.

In other words, they both do more than they would without each other.

Mother-in-Law and Son-in-Law (Me)

Martha and I both tend to “Work behind the scenes” to accomplish our goals. Now we conspire with each other for the same purpose.

Nerve Center for Family

With five (Instead of two) adults in the same house its easier to keep in touch with extended family members and friends. That’s more connection for less effort. Since these are people we love and care about that is a very good thing.

All of us enjoy having guests. We have more guests because there are more people to visit. And, we enjoy them more because we’re all pitching in to entertain.

As a single man until the age of 44 I traveled for Christmas 20 years in a row. Now, I’m thrilled to have most of the family here and pass the travel burden onto the remaining single members of the family or those looking to take a break in wine country.

Circular Benefits

Everything that benefits one of us loops back around to benefit all of us. Here are some examples of how this plays out:

  1. My productivity at home leads to peace of mind and more abundance brought into our house. That peace of mind is felt by Timothy and sets an example for him that its possible to live a great life and not be stressed out all the time. More abundance leads to the ability to sustain our lifestyle.
  2. Isabel is freed up from most of the conventional tasks on a new mother’s list. The way I put it is, by the time her alarm clock rings in the morning, she has accomplished more than most new mothers can in two days.
  3. We purchased reclining couches for the living room to make it more comfortable to watch TV. That lead to ‘movie night’ Fridays. Movie night is a great excuse for everyone to spend time together. It also saves on the $150 it would cost for all four of us to go to the movie theatre after coke, popcorn, babysitting and who knows what else.

Unexpected Problems

And what about me and my new in-laws? Most people have trouble even with roomates. How about living with two new roomates you’re just getting to know? There had to be problems and arguments and blow-ups, don’t you think?

Not really. Sure, we’ve had our misunderstandings while getting to know each other, but, nothing more. Once you translate the culture and language our underlying goals are so united there’s nothing to argue about.

The real surprise was watching Fabio and Martha go through the adjustment of living with each other while spending the whole day together. They’d raised two kids and been married for 30 years, but, had never spent as much daily time together as when they moved in with us.

Trash

We do more shopping online, nowadays. Things that would normally come together in a bag get delivered separately in a box. That brings more boxes into the house. With baby showers, birthdays, more guests, medical supplies and holidays we have a lot of trash!

I’m bad about remembering trash day. That’s a disaster with six people in the house. One false move and we’ll never catch up without a trip to the dump.

Fabio has taken to overseeing our trash situation. Believe me, when I wake up on Friday morning and don’t have to panic at the sound of the garbage trucks I’m very grateful.

Space & House Layout

More people means more guests. Guests need a place to stay. Our only ‘spare’ room was my office. So, whenever we had guests I had to give up my office. Sure, I could use the computer during the day, but, at least half of my productivity happens at night after everyone is asleep.

Guests were’nt the only reason for a new home office. The only room that could hold my filing cabinets, computer, books, reference materials and have room for a meeting with another person was my first office. That was also the only downstairs room available for my mom. As it turned out, using the last remaining bedroom upstairs didn’t work for several reasons:

When guests came I lost night-time use of the office. For me that was about half of my productivity.

The room was not really all mine. Isabel kept her office books, cabinets, lights and reference materials in the room. The closet was half full of her stuff and the other half was an overflow closet used by Martha.

My office was half upstairs and half downstairs. I had to go up and down the stairs three times just to stage the items needed to work on a project. Any doorbell ring or need for additional materials would send me upstairs and downstairs, yet again.

And so . . .

The Man Cave is Born

What this all lead to was the need to create another room in the house. The optimal room would be:

  • Downstairs.
  • Big enough for all the ‘tools’ for my work.
  • Not infringe on another mandatory use of space.
  • Accessible, but not too accessible to the daily activities of the house.

And so, my friend David and carved out 1/3 of our 3-car garage and made it into an office. It took 2.5 months of back-breaking work. Frankly, it was a study in the drawbacks and benefits of working on only one goal and ignoring all others. One day I’ll write an article on whether or not that’s the optimal approach.

Although I had designed an addition to the house that would have been perfect it was just too expensive to build considering all the other purchases I was making to make sure we’d make it through this terrible downturn in the economy.

Person by Person

In my first article I said there had to be something in it for everyone for the whole multi-generational living to work. Now that we’ve been together 13 months let’s go person by person and look at how its been for each one of us.

Mom

The joy on my mom’s face when she see’s Timothy (Every day) says it all.

On her second trip to the doctor, four months after moving in, he couldn’t believe how much she had improved. And that was before Timothy was born. We have lunch every day together and sometimes even a party on the patio. Timothy looks over and screams when mom waves at him and that’s a great ‘conversation’ to watch.

My mom’s health is not well and she doesn’t always cooperate with Martha when its time to do her exercises. However, I have my doubts that she’d be with us, at all, if it weren’t for the comfort and care she receieves by living with us.

Martha

Martha is obviously happy and also a bit restless. She’s taken on another child to take care of during the day for extra income and earns every penny of it.

Fabio

Fabio loves being at home. Later, he’ll probably need to get out more. But, for now there’s plenty going on in the house to entertain.

Timothy

Timothy gets parents who are smiling and not stressed out. He has the priceless attention and love of his grandparents. He feels the support of living in a home where everyone is looking out for each other and gets far more interaction than would be possible in daycare.

He’s learning Spanish as his first language and will pick up english like a sponge when it’s time. He might even be ready to learn a third by the time most students are deciding on a second.

Isabel

Before Isabel’s alarm clock goes off in the morning she’s gotten more ‘done’ than most mothers could in three days. That’s because most of what needs to be done around the house is split between myself, Fabio, Martha or other Martha (Who comes to clean house three times a month).

“People like doing things for me.”, she says. As a smart husband I won’t touch that statement.

Me

When I was single just thinking about living like this would have been like thinking about walking on the moon. Even now its an unfolding mystery. I’m suprised to find very little on the internet written about the subject coming from Americans. For economic reasons I predict that’s going to change.

Ironically, being willing to give up the freedom I had when I was single has been the very means of becoming more free than I’ve ever felt in my life.

I’m surprised the whole arrangement goes as well as it does.

What Happens Around Here

Here’s some things that happen around here:

  • Almuerzo – Spanish for “Lunch”. Everyday at 12pm prepared by Fabio. You know its happening when the intercom rings.
  • Movie Night – We bought special couches that recline so up to 6 people can recline in comfort. I figure every movie saves us $150 though saving money wasn’t the motivation.
  • Boys Day / Girls Day – With lots of people around this need becomes obvious. The girls want to do their thing without prying eyes. The boys want to do their thing without hearing comments.

Everybody’s Got Their Secret Stash

Martha has her sweets, mom’s got her cookies, Fabio has his whisky and I have my figs and wine. Isabel doesn’t have to keep a stash because Fabio keeps it for her for. Or maybe she’s just better at keeping secrets than we are.

What Our Friends Said?

Last month our friends and family told us they gave us two months, tops.

Can you blame them? What odds do you give someone bungy jumping from a helicopter?

And this article is not a, “See?, We TOLD you it would work!” I can’t do that because the lifestyle is an unfolding mystery. I can tell you the benefits and drawbacks in retrospect, but, the future is not predictable.

One of my favorite comments was, “If we predict failure we only have to be right once. For you to pronounce success you have to be right 24 hours a day, forever”. That’s only true if we took some kind of club oath. I’d say being happy for a solid year counts for a good measure of success.

Hernan (Fabio’s brother) thanked Fabio, not me, for his hospitality for a 2 week stay at the house. It occured to me, that night, that it was a sign of the success of living together. It’s not really my house, anymore. Its “our” house.

The things I have are just things I’m using while I’m alive. They don’t seem like mine, really. They’re just things and tools and materials. Now the house has become just another tool to get a job done.

Coverage

One of my favorite benefits is coverage. Here’s some examples:

  • If I need to run an errand I have coverage for Timothy and mom’s care.
  • If Isabel needs to work late she has coverage for Timothy. Tasks she ‘meant’ to get done that night can be delegated to us and she’ll probably have dinner waiting for her when she gets home.
  • If Fabio wants to go to Colombia for a few weeks he can pack a few things and go. He can easily plug back into his routine upon return.
  • If Martha needs the afternoon to go the doctor there’s not much planning needed for Fabio and I to cover for her.

The real value of coverage is that it is general and flexible. As things come up for each of us we know others are there to cover for us. Its a general comfort that becomes specific as life events unfold.

BBQs

I love BBQ’s. With more people and guests there are more excuses to have one. There’s also more oppurtunity to combine events like birthdays and anniversaries.

Cadence of the Day

Our days unfold with a cadence that marks time and gives things to look forward to. I know for sure this doesn’t happen when you’re single.

The Future

Fabio and Martha have considered selling their home in Orlando and probably would if the market allows.

If we have a second child the guest room goes to the baby. Even with the garage office I built to free up an official guest room we’ll be left with no spare rooms.

A prolonged recession in the US is now guaranteed. That makes our living situation even more beneficial. Perhaps these articles will be helpful to more Americans as they contemplate throwing in, together.

Copyright © 2009 by Terence Gillespie. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit and a live link are given to McGillespie.com

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Clint with In-laws
Children

Why I Live With My In-Laws!

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I can’t claim credit for the idea that my father and mother-in-law move in with us. Or that we move my mom from her nursing home into my office. . . .

. . . .Because that would be five people and two dogs in the same house with a baby on the way!

Oh, no. It was my optimal Wife that came up with this masterpiece. She saw the mounting nursing home bills, knew a baby was coming and swung into action. By the time she was finished laying it all out, one night after work, she had a way to upgrade all of our lives. And that upgrade goes double for her. But, what can I say? It was her idea.

Her radical plan was to have us all living together. We would divide up tasks according to our abilities, split costs where we could, spend time together, help her parents ramp down from a lifetime of work and bridge the 3000 mile distance between our baby and its grandparents.

She was proposing we live like a family. A multi-generational family.

It was outrageous!

The American Way?

Why wasn’t this anti-radical vision my idea?

Because I grew up in Florida in the late 70’s/early 80’s. A period in American history when we were doing all we could to make ourselves into personal sovereign nations.

Families were relocate-able units set up to follow the money wherever it lead. Women’s lib ‘freed up’ mom to go to work. Dads were encouraged to do whatever to ‘find themselves’. And the kids watched Miami Vice and thought the drug dealers were way better off than Crockett and Tubbs. The only question was how we were gonna get one of those Ferrari’s and live in a mansion in Miami without getting arrested?

Family. Aren’t those the people you live with until you get a job? Everyone knows the goal is to decrease the number of generations in one house from two to one!

Not so fast.

What was left over from mom’s check after taxes barely paid for babysitting and Friday night pizza. Dad got sick of microwaved hot dogs and found out how much better life was with mom around. Mom didn’t like office politics. And my brother and I were hard pressed to improve on my father’s job, which he loved. We were living pretty well and dad
still managed to retire at 52.

Panic

But, what’s happening here? Isabel and I have only been married for 16 months and we’ll never be alone in the house together again for at least 18 years or more! How could we stand that? Doesn’t everybody feel on top of each other? Who pays for all the food, mortgage, utilities, cable and what about all the potential noise and distractions all the time of everyone in the kitchen?

The Decision

Most of what makes life good or bad is set by five decisions or less.

Make them well and you eliminate 95% of the life’s friction. Make them badly and you’re plagued with problems that aren’t even solvable. This was one of those decisions.

For all my talk about optimizing everything and making balanced decisions from every vantage point my wife just fell asleep with a problem and woke up with the solution. But, Making the final decision gave me a headache for the next three weeks.

If I list everything that concerned me over living as a multi-generational household it would be the length of the phone book. Everything is affected by a decision like this.

Take the big things like space, time, money, personalities, family, daily activities, food, alone time and noise. Then imagine how each one affects the others on the list. Then factor in that we’ve only been married for 16-months. Add in that we would be taking on the full-time care of my mom who had two strokes, last year. And don’t think too much about that baby on the way or you might go a little nuts.

“Don’t make such a big deal about it.”, Isabel said.

First of all, you can’t get all the facts to make a decision like this. The permutations are not computable because you don’t have solid data for input. Its all anecdotal evidence from people you don’t know. How do I know these people share my values and preferences?

In the end, I used three tools to help make the decision: A mind map, a stop-loss provision and a leap of faith.

On the mind map I listed out every concern that came to mind. I drew lines connecting every box that affected the others (There were a lot of lines). I googled as much as I could to get other peoples’ experience. I tried to come up with a creative solution to anything that still caused concern. Then I slept on it, woke up, and did the same thing again. For Three weeks.

After all that I was ready to consult my newly informed intuition.

The result? Few problems that couldn’t be worked out. Everything depended on the personalities and character of the people involved. And these were unknowns in the circumstances under consideration because none of us had had lived this way before.

Several times in our brief marriage I asked my wife to have faith in something I felt strongly about and she went along. Things turned out as predicted and I’d like to think she’s more comfortable with my judgment. Now the shoe was on the other foot and she was asking me to have faith in her instincts. You might say, I owed her one.

You might also say there’s no way to eliminate the “Leap of Faith” aspect to a decision like this. But, her certainty did make the leap easier.

OK, so it might work. But, what if we’re wrong? Is there any way out?

To feel more comfortable in taking the first steps we put a few stop-loss provisions in place:

  1. Fabio and Martha rented their house in Florida rather than sell it.
  2. I made a two-year commitment to see if it would work.
  3. I designed an addition to the house in case we didn’t have enough space.

With the mind map to mentally sort through the details, the leap of faith I owed Isabel and the above stop-loss provisions there were no excuses left to postpone the decision.

I was satisfied the downside to giving it a try had been minimized.

Moving In

Martha

Martha came first. She put in her notice to St. John’s, put on a baby shower for us and said her goodbyes to all her friends in Orlando. She was getting out of retail at the perfect time. She had been on her feet for 20 years and it was time to take a break and be with her daughter and grandchild-to-be.

In the weeks leading up to her arrival the boxes trickled in at the front door and were hauled up to the jungle, our safari theme guest room, one-by-one. If there was a time of nervousness for me it was watching the boxes arrive and wondering what we were getting ourselves into.

Martha is only 11 years older than me and only 3 years older than my friend, David, so there is no generation gap to speak of. When she arrived it was more like greeting a friend than a mother-in-law. It felt like a friend was spending a few weeks with us.

Mom

We had to get training to learn how to take care of my mom. They taught us how to transfer her from the bed to the chair, from the chair to the shower, how to prepare food and ways to help her do exercises. There was also a strict drug regimen that took some getting used to. Support equipment trickled in from the UPS guy. Stuff like wheelchairs, a shower chair, transfer poles and oxygen bottles were arriving every other day.

Then it was time to move my mom into the house. The actual move was the last step in a long project, beyond the scope of this article. It was quite a balancing act to prepare for her full-time care because she’s confined to a wheelchair and needs quite a range of care and attention. Martha took the sting out of all if this and everything went smoothly mostly because of her.

Mom was thrilled in a hundred different ways to be living at home.

After about two months of adjustments and many sessions with physical and occupational therapists we started to get the hang of the work involved. There were lots of medicare forms to sign and equipment to set up. Isabel set up all moms prescriptions to be automatically filled every quarter by just logging on and checking what we were running out of.

Fabio

My mom and Martha were here for about two months before Fabio came. By that time we had most things worked out and running smoothly.

Fabio gave a 45-day notice to the law firm he was working for. Along notice because he was working for his nephew Rodrigo and there was a lot of planning needed for a smooth transition.

When he arrived the house felt more balanced. I didn’t realize the balance had shifted so much to the feminine until he swayed it back to neutral.

Fabio’s first adjustment was what to do when the phone doesn’t ring. Back in Orlando he was getting ten calls an hour on the job. Now there was only the sound of the breeze on the patio, the geese flying overhead and the TV if he turned it on.

It wasn’t long before Fabio’s talents as a chef were put into swing when six cousins came to visit for a week. That brought the total in the house up to eleven for the week!

How’s It Workin’ Out?

After four months it’s working out better than my wife expected with advantages I didn’t expect.

Space

We dodged the bullet on space issues by having a larger house from the start.

We saw 76 houses before choosing this one. Our goal was to avoid having to move again before our kids went to college. The most obvious weakness would have been lack of space and 3049 square feet has been enough. More importantly, the layout is efficient, functional areas are separated and it handles people well. Hallelujah!

Bedrooms

Four of the five bedrooms are taken. The last one is ready for the baby coming next week. Since all kids get their own bedrooms, nowadays, we won’t have space issues until a second child comes along.

Alone Time

Alone time is more than having your own room. We have four options that can be used by anyone in the house:

  1. The living room is off by itself.
  2. The patio.
  3. The outside front of the house on the “Silla de Navidad” or Christmas Chair.
  4. On the golf course trails.

These areas don’t have doors. However, it’s not easy to find you unless you know where to look.

Guests

When guests come the blow-up beds from Costco come out and go into my office or one of the common areas. My office is perfect for that and the common areas feel like you have your own room.

I think its a waste of house to have rooms set aside only for guests. Many people think guest only rooms are mandatory. I think the mandatory rooms are for people who live in the house. I have no problem giving up my bedroom for a guest and can easily blow-up a bed and sleep in my office for a few days.

Noise

Noise has not been a problem other than my reluctance to sing loudly and write songs when people are around. As a musician I’m sensitive to noise. If its not a problem for me then it probably won’t be a problem for someone else.

Sometimes its hard to watch TV in the family room as people accumulate in the kitchen. But, we have one of those large family rooms connected to a large kitchen. What else would you expect with a room design like that?

If anyone really wants to watch something they go to their own rooms where there’s no interruptions. I’d rather have the family room/kitchen combination because its where everyone hangs out.

Expenses

Household expenses are about 10% higher in the form of electricity, cable, water and gas. We split food, so, food remains the same. You could look at the cost increase in three different ways:

  1. It’s 10% more expensive.
  2. That the incremental cost per person added is low.
  3. That with a 10% increase overall expenses will still be much lower because more people are splitting all costs.

#1 and #2 are self-explanatory.

If you computed #3 by dividing all costs by five it would be a lot of money saved. But, we don’t do that for the same reason most people probably won’t: Money is only one way to keep track of contribution to a household

In our case Fabio and Martha make it more feasible to take on the full-time care of my mom. If mom is living here we save on paying a nursing home. Saving that expense frees up money to pay other expenses and improves the quality of all our lives, my mom’s most of all.

Fabio and Martha rent their house in Florida which pays for their house expenses. They have no house expenses here so can more easily cover bills like health insurance, gas, cell phone., etc.

Our costs have risen by 10% but we had to pay 90% of those costs, anyway. The more economies of scale and division of labor benefits (See below) that occur the more the additional 10% returns.

I think of it like the difference between buying one meal at a restaurant and eating at a buffet. You pay a little more for the buffet, but, the variety and quality of your meal is improved.

Economies of Scale

We can prepare a meal for five people as easily as two. And by scaling the same ingredients to a recipe the leftovers can last for several meals.

The Same goes for grocery shopping. One trip to the grocery store is taken to shop for five people instead of two. The gas, time and effort is the same while the people it serves is more than double. And we can buy the large cans at Costco making the food cheaper by the once. When the cans are opened they’re less likely to spoil and that means less waste.

Isabel and I each have an SUV. Fabio and Martha have a sedan. Since Isabel is the only person who commutes to work she switched to the sedan and her commuting costs were cut in half. Fabio and Martha can use the SUV around town which requires less mileage and gas on the larger car.

Some things are better, but not cheaper. A bachelor has little incentive to cook for himself, but a family almost always does. That leads to more cooked meals which are more nutritional than foraging out of the pantry.

Division of Labor

There are four people instead of two to manage chores or maintenance around the house. We also get the advantages of four people’s strengths instead of two. A task we have equal ability to perform can be rotated. The result is that the house runs smoother with less effort from any one person.

There’s also less stress. We have natural backup for the everyday overhead of living. Anything from a 2-hour trip to the grocery store to answering the door for the UPS guy.

This may seem trivial but it adds up. For me, its led to more work time and less distractions to write articles such as the one you’re reading.

To get an idea how the time and effort saved adds up look at the following list and add up the time you would save if you only had to perform the task every third time it was needed:

  • Grocery Shopping
  • Running Errands
  • Mailing Packages
  • Answering the Door
  • Washing Dishes
  • Screening Telemarketing Calls
  • Washing Clothes
  • Walking the Dog
  • Moving furniture
  • Taking Out the Trash
  • Preparing meals

Time with Family

We’re knocking it out of the park when it comes to time spent with family. Here’s what I observed around the house in the last month:

  • Singing Nat King Cole songs in Spanish on the patio while barbecuing lunch on the grill.
  • My mom on the patio with Lucy on her lap and laughing at the lyrics to a Jimmy Buffet song.
  • Isabel coming home to her favorite Colombian dish instead of having to make dinner when she’s tired.
  • Isabel and Martha on the couch looking at Facebook photos of a long lost friend.
  • Talking with Fabio and Martha on the Silla de Navidad about the Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac beginning of the next Great Depression.
  • Ricky following around grandpop whining and begging for a walk.
  • Martha telling stories of what Isabel was like as a child.
  • Visiting vineyards on Sundays after church to pick out a place to have the baby baptized.
  • Isabel and Martha and Maju (Fabio’s sister) decorating the baby’s room, together.

I’ve noticed the house is now the Family nerve center for extended family not living here, as well. Keeping up social contact with them is easier.

None of these things would’ve occurred if we weren’t under the same roof for longer than Christmas visits. And the whole situation will be what our children think of as normal. They will assume its just the way family’s live.

Your Optimal Family Living?

So far, yes.

However, I cannot make a whole-hearted recommendation of MG family living to everyone reading this. There are too many prerequisites, many of which are not in your control. I do recommend being open to considering it in light of the prerequisites, listed below.

Money and Family

It is possible to save money living like this. But, a more realistic goal is to improve your quality of life. Most of the benefits are intangible. Like the best things in life they can be counted on your fingers but maybe not in your bank account.

If you’re on the verge of financial disaster this isn’t going to save you. You probably won’t have the temperament or patience to make it work. One of the ways you could ruin it is to walk around with a calculator and tally up every nickel and dime insisting that everyone pay their fair share. Unless your calculator has has a “Quality of Life” button the numbers won’t prove the case, either way.

House Layout is Critical

Layout is more important than size. I’ve seen 2000 sq. ft. houses that would work and 5000 sq. ft. houses that wouldn’t. Here’s a shopping list of features that would make MG family living easier:

  • One bedroom per person or couple
  • One full bathroom per four people
  • Bathrooms accessible without intruding on privacy
  • Bedrooms separate from dining room for noise
  • Bedrooms separate from family room for noise
  • Kitchen and pantry large enough to handle everyone
  • House should have places for alone time, besides bedrooms

Including the baby we’ll average 508/sq. ft per person. I don’t know if that’s a magic number because layout is more important that space. Just adding it here for reference.

Good for Everyone

This whole multi-generational family living is voluntary, for everyone. You’d be fooling yourselves to think it was sustainable if there wasn’t something in it for everyone. The more, the better.

Even if your situation does benefit everyone, personalities may not mix. Ours do, so it works. But, any personality friction will only be worse if there isn’t something in it for everyone.

An Extension of Existing Compatibility

My wife and I have similar families, values and goals. And, we were raised in the same part of the country by parents with similar values. During these four months it feels as if our existing compatibility was extended to include our family. Is it really such a stretch that the family she came from is compatible with the family I came from?

Neil Clark Warren, Ph.D. says, “…when two people come from similar backgrounds, they operate from a position of strength. Their relationship is made significantly easier by all the customs and practices they have in common.”

And here’s what he says about the opposite:

“Forging a relationship with an opposite is so hard because every difference you have requires negotiation and adaptation. Accommodation and compromise will necessitate plenty of change. This change creates a kind of stress. If there are too many differences, you may not be able to survive all the strain involved in adapting to each other.”

Starting with you and your wife, a house full of opposites is more likely to zap everyone’s strengths just to cope with all the differences. Families with similar backgrounds, however, can focus on contributing individual strengths for the benefit of all.

The Future

We have many upcoming challenges:

  • How do things change when the baby comes?
  • A second child?
  • What Happens When My Mom Passes Away?
  • Estate Planning?
  • Building the Addition to the house?

And what challenges will time reveal that we don’t know about yet?

I plan to update this article, every year, for other families thinking of moving in together. I could have used an article like this five-months ago.

I don’t have an all-time final verdict. But, I do have the verdict on the last four months. I will whisper the three magic words my wife most longs to hear: “You were right”.

Copyright © 2008 by Terence Gillespie. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit and a live link are given to McGillespie.com

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