Gift Hub Phil Cubeta

Satan returns to earth to serve as a Values-Broker to UHNWs (Ultra High Net Worth Individuals). Having surveyed all religions, philosophies, and ways of life, he sets up shop in a bank, or brokerage, or insurance firm to offer values-based planning as a valued added service to the firm's top clients. "Pick the value system that is right for you, then work with our financial advisors to align your meaning and your money." To help in this process, Satan develop cards representative of commandments. "You sort them to find the values that fit you best."  Getting intimate with clients around values makes them more sticky, in the sense that they bond with you and are more loyal and are willing to pay the upcharge.

Against this devolution of morality to narcissistic consumer choice, we have organizations keeping alive moral, artistic, and spiritual traditions through the darkest of eras, including our own. These organizations include houses of worship, schools, arts organizations, and community services organizations.

Could we then say that the future for us as citizens, human beings, parents, as human souls, in our market-driven society, will be brighter when those who seek meaning, wisdom, purpose, discernment, engagement, selfhood, a sense of their own responsibilities (if any), look for it in the nonprofit, or nongovernmental, or for-benefit organizations best suited to provide it? Then, those organizations, rather than merely asking for money to sustain their operations, would be integral to the very process of deliberating and planning the citizen's "moral compass" and "capacity," to use the terms of Paul Schervish.

I can imagine if values-based inquiry takes hold in the churches, synagogues, and schools that the Bank of Wealth Bondage will lobby Congress to make it illegal, on the grounds that planning money in a nonprofit raising money is a clear conflict of interest. Such work is best done in the Bank, where values can be kept neutral, allowing for a greater range of choices among available ethical systems. I may well be called as an expert witness. I would have to say that unless we do keep the religious organizations and schools out of values based work, there will be Hell to pay on Wall Street when the markets open in the morning, and God through his hidden hand makes His will known to us. I don't believe that, but I am in no position to be candid, given my employment status, as a Morals Tutor to America's Wealthiest Families in Wealth Bondage. You understand, I am sure. We all have to make a living. I will tell the truth when I retire some day and move to Canada, but given how the market fell apart, and never recovered, my retirement plans are on hold.

Enough about me! You seem to be a Person of Wealth. And O! I don't mean just financial. You clearly are very wise in your own right! And your kid too judging by his blue blazer.  May I plan your values please? You and the kid sort these values cards while I take a leak. I will debrief you and offer absolution when I get back. Meanwhile, I will have my assistant verify your bank balance.  

 
Wisdom, once considered a goddess, or an angel, is now considered an intangible consumer good, perhaps a luxury good, to be provided to the wealthy, by private banks, for example. Since taste in wisdom differs (and tolerance for it as well), and since we do not want to impose our taste on others, each wealth holder will have a choice of many wisdom systems, so each can pick the one that is right for him or her. Wisdom is one product. Another is virtue. Then too we have meaning, and significance. These too are commodities, but best provided to the wealthy since they can best leverage these gifts across greater capacity. Capacity is defined as financial in the largest sense of financial, intellectual, social, and spiritual. Private Banks best manage such capacity, or attorneys, if they have read Chaucer, or once talked to someone who has.  

The above is the dumbest darn moral and political philosophy I have ever encountered among serious, or educated thinkers. Yet it is the evolving framework of financial services at the highest levels. And, yes, blame me! I am in the middle of this as a purveyor and retailer and enabler of what is clearly an aching, howling absurdity.

Wisdom is learned in brokenness and surrender, in humbleness of heart, and is informed by endless toil in old dusty books, among those dedicated to following the faintest traces of wisdom as she bounds like a deer or rabbit through the dark wood of our own stupidity, pride, and corruption. To think private banks and those they employ, or insurance agents, or values based planners making money through money will be the best guides in this dark wood is clearly delusional. (How can those who are so lost bill themselves as guides?, I ask, bewildered myself, and no model of wisdom, just trying to hold down a job in Wealth Bondage as a Morals Tutor first class, and give no offense, since they just fired three of my peers for ticking off a big customer.)

If the leaders - those who have spent 20-40 years as students before joining Wealth Bondage as Wisdom Consultants - are so lost, where are we to find a real moral compass? Answer: "Phil, what kind of moral compass do you have in mind? We have many we can provide you at a price you can afford, if you are worth $10 million or more and deposit those funds with us for a minimum of three years. You looking for a compass that is religious or secular? Want a Christian tinge to it? You like Buddhism? Or would you be more of a Seneca kind of man? You want one that fits in your pocket, or one you can mount as decoration in your foyer?" I was thinking actually of one for my Dumpster, in case it grows wings.

We, rich or poor, scholar or dunce, learn wisdom as the Goddess of Fortune breaks us on her wheel. We enter this world naked, not even in shirtsleeves, and naked we leave it, though I suppose the corpse can be dressed in a business suit, too. For those seeking wisdom, who have not yet experienced deep suffering - Please! Follow me! The Happy Tutor will be with you shortly, as soon as he finishes another Customer.  

As Tom is at pains to point out, some Wealth 'N Wisdom consulting can appear shallow, when judged by the standards of actual scholarship. That, however, is a well-crafted illusion to which Tom has fallen prey. Here, by way of context, is a letter from Alexander the Great to his Morals Tutor, Aristotle:

Alexander to Aristotle, greeting.

You have not done well to publish your books of oral doctrine; for what is there now that we excel others in, if those things which we have been particularly instructed in be laid open to all? For my part, I assure you, I had rather excel others in the knowledge of what is excellent, than in the extent of my power and dominion.

Farewell.

A prudent Wisdom "N Wealth Counselor will put into writing only the empty rind of his or her wisdom, lest the riffraff attain it for little cost, and the wealthy have nothing special to show for their particular instruction.

I am reading and getting a great deal out of Wealth and the Will of God: Discerning the Use of Riches in the Service of Ultimate Purpose.The book provides helpful summaries of Aristotle, Aquinas, Ignatius, Luther, Calvin, and Jonathan Edwards on the proper uses of riches. The book's authors are Paul Schervish, a former Jesuit, now professor of sociology and Director of the Center on Wealth and Philanthropy at Boston College and Dr.  Keith Whitaker, a Research Fellow at Boston College's Center on Wealth and Philanthropy. He was trained in social thought and in classics. Formerly a Managing Director, Family Dynamics, at Wells Fargo Family Wealth, Keith is now is now in private practice, at Wise Counsel Research.

Wise Counsel Research is a recipient of a Templeton Wisdom Grant.  Our current project is a study of the role of wisdom in wealth advising through structured interviews with advisors and families.  Our initial results from advisor interviews were presented at the 2009 Annual Meeting of the Family Firm Institute.  We are currently conducting our family interviews.....

Besides serving as president of Wise Counsel Research, Dr. Whitaker is also a consultant in Larkmeadow, which helps people with significant resources find wise counsel.

Reading the bios on Wise Counsel is fascinating, as are the Portraits of their distinquished predecessors in our noble trade. See what you think. The wealthy need wise counsel, certainly, the wise, with degrees in Divinity, Classics, Social Thought, Psychotherapy, or in my case, Literature, Philosophy, and Psychology, go into and out of and into and out of posts in financial services companies. Somehow this moral counseling thing has never quite taken root as a good business. I plan to write a Scholarly Paper on Practice Management for The Annual Conference of Wise Counselors, once I can get a rich person, bank, or foundation to fund it. As a pariah, I am finding that difficult. I hope Keith and Paul's efforts will be blessed with greater Success.

Since earnest minds seek to learn, here are two excellent essays on anger.

Seneca

Kia

Indignation, righteous rage, is a holy fire. Anger passes, indignation will burn us alive.

Per St. Thomas, alms are as follows. I, as the Morals Tutor to America's Wealthiest Families, have taken these to heart, troubled as I am in the spirit and the flesh, knowing that I am not the the most afflicted, necessarily, at least judging by my clientele, though they may not be a random sample. 

1. Feed the hungry - when I get around to it, maybe
2. Give drink to the thirsty - Thunderbird for my friends!
3. Clothe the naked - First, Diogenes could use a diaper
4. Harbor the harborless - My Dumpster is your Dumpster
5. Visit the sick - Moral illness is my specialty; I live among and visit the morally insane, until it has come to me to seem normal that people are as crazy as they are
6. Ransom the captive - From sin and death, yes, as best I can!
7. Bury the dead - And among them the living dead, yes.

The spiritual alms are these:

1. Instruct the ignorant -  as I do daily here on Gifthub as in Wealth Bondage generally; this highly informative post being a case in point, and representive of the high quality content for which I stand.
2. Counsel the doubtful - as I do in the comment section below, daily
3. Comfort the sorrowful - as in the comment section, yes
4. Reprove the sinner - of course! It is my pleasure to do so!
5. Forgive injuries - this is a development opportunity for me
6. Bear with those who trouble and annoy me - Do I ever! Daily! Those SOBs.
7. Pray for all - I have just now said a prayer for the immortal soul of Rush Limbaugh, that he might, no less than I be saved. We are sinners all. We have all fallen into Wealth Bondage, its snares. God forgive me, Rush, Candidia our mutual boss, and all who fall into the snares and traps of the media, and consumer society generally. At least I don't smoke cigars, though Freud did.

Parable

Art loved Truth but married Money. In the process she signed a prenup stating that her marriage could be terminated at any moment with or without cause, and she would leave empty-handed. Years later she is happily married, still dances, but the dance seems increasingly dated. When she speaks of Truth is it wisfully, "Ah, those were the days," and her feet begin in the old pattern.

Parable Revised

Art loved Truth, married Money, signed the prenup, and met Truth in a hotel on weekends. Her dance evolved, became more intricate and enigmatic.

Parable Revised Again

More enigmatic, tormented, the dance was danced for Money, and for Truth in his absence. Money was well pleased, assuming the energy was all for him.  

Again

The Marriage of Wealth and Art is stable. A good couple. They look good together. The Daugher is Philanthropy, the Son is Influence, and the picture they make is stunning.

Again

The picture hangs on my wall, above my desk in Wealth Bondage. Our clients are the best! I keep Art's secrets and she keeps mine. What happens in Wealth Bondage stays in Wealth Bondage.

A therapist understands a patient better than the patient as yet understands himself. The therapist gently and only as the patient proves ready awakens the patient to self understanding, by which the patient is then healed. A satirist has to work faster. Satire is not covered under health insurance, not even most dental plans. Patients do not pay for satire. They must first be abducted, hooded and diapered, as in a CIA grab. While the CIA has planes for special rendition, and black ops sites where those in need of moral healing can confess their sins, repent and reform, the satirist has to work like an old fashioned abortionist in a back alley, with the tools that present themselves, a pillow case, wire stripped from an old radio, a hangar, a broken bottle, a lighter, a brick. Seldom is so much as a ballpeen hammer available. With the tools so presented the pro bono morals tutor must leave the client, healed, grateful, reformed and as joyous as is the teacher. We rejoice, as Jesus said we must, more in the black sheep returned to the fold than in the white lamb who never left. "Physician, Heal thyself," the patient grumbles, rubbing hs buttocks, as he leaves the Satiric Quack Doctor's office. "Know thyself," he grumbles at his philosophic mentor. But laughter remains the best medicine. We all must laugh at ourselves, if I can make just one serious point here as a world class fool. This may be hard to swallow, but the truth is a bitter pill, assuming the prescription in question is oral.

Satire, is, actually. Savage indignation is what lacerated Jonathan Swift. To make indignation work, we must embrace the evil, as a physician might hover over and palpate a leper. We must become what we hate, and write from within it, with the full evil and glory of evil aglint in our eyes - as morally insane as the victim and his enablers. In that way, through impersonation of vice and folly, through our staunch advocacy of it, our anger becomes love, laughter, and sheer malicious joy - and we can claim to be healing the victim whose wounds we tent, without anesthetic, lovingly, with rusty blade, rubbing in the Attic Salt, to prevent gangrene. "All for the good of the order, to heal, not hurt." Many are the metaphors or alibis for our noble trade: Physician, surgeon, morals tutor with a rascal over his knee, or hangman who hangs then sweetly draws and quarters a malefactor. All for the public good, of course. We must delight and instruct, as Horace says, and what could please and edify a jeering crowd more than justice meted out to the highly placed who would otherwise do ill with impunity?

Scene 1

Mother rocks an infant child, singing a lullabye, imagining that one day he will be an important man.

Scene 2

The Red Sox are 10 games out of first place, with 11 games left to play. The fan stands, his shirt off in the cold, face painted in team colors, waving a huge foam rubber finger, "We are number one!"

Human Nature

Surrounded by his fellow fans, this harmless fanatic may not be number one at work, but on game day he is a winner in his own right, no matter how long the odds. And there is always next season.

As for the mother, her odds are better, her quest less foolish. Perhaps her son will be the next Bill Gates, or win the Series. Hope springs eternal.

Planning

He can plan to win the pennant and the series; she can plan her child to be President. But really hope is more like superstition; we must bounce the foam finger, sing the lullabye, and pray. It may not help, but it can't hurt. Meanwhile, the stands rock with fellow feeling, and the infant sleeps peacefully in his mother's arms.  Without the crowd, without the love, what hope would we have?

In the radioactive ruins of his civilization, the sole survivor of a ruined house, a child with months to live, crouches to plant a single seed, whether an apple seed or a mustard seed, he does not know, and will not live to see. "Live in hope," wrote Havel. "Live in truth." The child knows he will not live. He plants in hope. By that seed his family, city, civilization, are redeemed, if redemption is possible for such as we.

In the radioactive ruins of his civilization, the sole survivor of a ruined house, a child with months to live, crouches to plant a single seed, whether an apple seed or a mustard seed, he does not know, and will not live to see. "Live in hope," wrote Havel. "Live in truth." The child knows he will not live. He plants in hope. By that seed his family, city, civilization, are redeemed, if redemption is possible for such as we.

In the radioactive ruins of his civilization, the sole survivor of a ruined house, a child with months to live, crouches to plant a single seed, whether an apple seed or a mustard seed, he does not know, and will not live to see. "Live in hope," wrote Havel. "Live in truth." The child knows he will not live. He plants in hope. By that seed his family, city, civilization, are redeemed, if redemption is possible for such as we.

His work, The Sense of an Ending, could well inform legacy planning. We rewrite the beginning and the middle by the endings we contrive. His own legacy is not in doubt, with or without the knighthood.

There is a big of difference, when you are a planner, executive, teacher, farmer, philanthropist or parent between "making change happen" and "allowing it to happen." The difference here could be engineering, business planning, indoctrination, management and control systems, and the Lockean vision of a child, employee, or consumer as a "tabula rasa," to be engraved with a message, brand, or role in a plan, or an army, versus farming, parenting by love, and the gentle kindness of a mentor who removes impediments to the vital internal growth of a living thing.

An engineer, general, or business planner is interested in necessary and sufficient force applied to a given problem to shatter all resistance and carry the day. The plan marshals the irresistible force, applies it strategically, in a competitive struggle, and wins the objective, on time, on budget, with bugles blowing and the General striding down Main Street like General Patton on the Fourth of July. Results are measured. Rewards are handed out, whether a bonus, promotion, ribbon, or crown. Paul Schervish, without apparent irony, calls such prideful power figures, "hyperagents," and sees philanthropy as such a strategic friendship or strategic, entrepreneurial force, by which the masterful few, the Gates and Buffet billionaire crowd, remake our world for us - without questioning their wisdom, virtue or legitimacy, without a Fool to do more than amuse them, and without a slave to ride behind them in the Pope-Mobile, whispering, Remember Caesar, thou art mortal!

Now, here in the inset passage below, is a woman's voice. Her claim to fame (among many others) is that she taught Spanish, and went on to start a Diaper Bank. I hear in this voice that of a mother who knows to ask not "what can I make my child do," but "what can I enable her to do?" That difference is critical. The second approach attributes moral agency to the other, and is humble, loving, and in some sense resigned. The child will err, over and over. But the goal is to honor and cultivate the child's own capacity, her own moral agency, not the parent's hyper-egotistical dream of manufacturing the child, and the child's future. Our fellow citizens, likewise, are united to us in a community of care, as well as a society of consumers and producers. Our goal as givers can be to remove the obstacles that hold back the life energy of others, that enslave them, whether to hierarchies not of their making, whether to bosses in their dimness, whether to consumerism and brands, whether to economic injustice, whether to ignorance age old and age thick in places high and low, whether to corrupt political power, or whether our enslavement is to our own base desires, the servicing of which we have been taught by the market to call Freedom, though a mother might call it sin, vice, a bad choice, or addiction. These words below from Hildy Gottlieb sound to me as if written at a Board Table, which is also her kitchen table. They are written within a wisdom that we lose at our own cost, if we get too caught up in "making it happen," by our own hyperagency. 

If I accomplish this task, what will it make possible? For whom? Once you have an answer, ask the same question about the answer. Then ask again. Keep asking, “What will that make possible? For whom?” until you reach the very highest ultimate result you want to hold yourself accountable for creating. And here’s a hint: If you are being the change you want to see in the world, the ultimate result will not be for your organization. It will be for the community you want to effect. Just above this passage in its original context, Hildy is talking about aiming high and holding ourselves accountable, and also about taking time each day to meditate quietly on what matters. The passage above meets those tests. "Speech after long silence, it is right," wrote Yeats of friends and lovers sitting by the fire. This is the language of the hearth, to use the term from Lewis Hyde, in his The Gift: The Erotic Life of Property. That language is in contrast to the language of the altar, and the language of the gate through which merchants come and go in pursuit of great wealth, and generals march at the head of armies, to remake the world through conquest. Hildy has no intention of becoming a hyperagent. She has passed the Temptation of the Kingdoms. She reads as one more concerned about her family and her community than herself or her vision. However humble the task, whether making a meal, cleaning a room, getting out a stain from a husband's shirt, or writing a grant proposal, a certain sort of person asks, "What is in it for me? Or, "Who is going to make me?" Or,"Where is it written that I should have to do this crap?" And another sort asks, "If I accomplish this task, what will this make possible?" As women of Hildy's and succeeding generations put their habits of care and concern, their ways of thinking about getting things done with no resources, little power, low status, no big structure, no armies, no big pile of money, no glory, just a network of relationships held together by respect, love, and reciprocity, our world may heal itself. Hildy teaches me what I already knew intuitively but never saw in proper context, or held as conscious head-knowledge. This is less about gender than about genre. Inspiration, creativity, receptivity, fecundity, care, the bearing of suffering, humility, patience, hope, and the passing on of a life force that we can only liberate or block, much as life quickens in the womb, and arrives hungry, clutching, and wailing - already a self, not us, beyond our control, but connected by the cord we cut.

Tony Macklin on Creating a Trusted Community Giving Center. Tony has a fine feel for the human dynamics of giving in community with others, and within a personal and shared narrative. He does not seem particularly surprised by data showing that donors give from the heart and rationalize it with the head, or that giving is a social gesture. You might ask how a Trusted Community Giving Center would differ from a community foundation. Here is what he says:

What if your local community foundation didn’t treat donors as sources of new revenue, but treated donors as a latent marketplace of good ideas, relationships, and opportunities to learn and connect?  What if the foundation let donors formulate and lead strategic initiatives, helping them get generous stuff done that is meaningful to them?

I wonder what would be the sustainablility model for such a center. Assets under management? That would lead back to the Community Foundation as Asset Gatherer. More like a hangout or club? A soiree? An online social hub?

Hildy, we may have each other's missing piece. You train volunteers, nonprofit boards, and consultants to such. I train fundraisers, advisors, funders, and consultants to such.

Every bit of what you write for board leaders about the mission driven strategic planning process for a nonprofit (or "for-benefit organization") applies verbatim, riff for riff, to what estate planning and financial planning should be, for us all, including the wealthiest.

Russ Prince and Hannah Shaw Grove surveyed wealthy people ($10 million and up) who had estate plans done but had never signed them. They asked why. Over 95% said the plan did not meet their goals. About the same percentage said the plan was so convoluted and legalistic they could not understand it.  

Wealthy people are frail mortal creatures no less than the rest of us, of course. (c.f,. the celebrity who hearing of your Diaper Bank said, "My mother.") Wealthy people stall in their legacy planning because they and their advisors are not asking the questions, the very same questions, that you ask in your planning process with board members. Here is my effort to play your riffs in an estate planning context:

1. What is our vision of success, for ourselves, our money, our business, our family, our community?
2. What must happen for that vision to be possible?
3. How can we facilitate that change?
4. Who must join us in this work? And how will our example inspire them to enroll in this work?
5. Or last will and testament is our final teaching. What do we want it to say?
6. We are what we do. We are what we do at the turning points in our lives. Death is one such turning point! Do your plans reflect who you are, and will be remembered for having been?
7. How can we lead at the planning table when the big dollars are planned so that not only our board service, our parenting, and our volunteering, but our financial and estate plans fully reflect who we are, and our commitment to our vision of a better life and a better world?
8. We are what we hold ourselves accountable for. Are we accountable for what our last will and testament actually says and does? Do we even know what it says? Have we passively left that planning in the hands of advisors whose world view (a view they attribute to us) is essentially selfish, cold, competitive, and controlling?
9. What does our final plan make possible? What better world will our death time planning birth?

I am still learning your way of practical planning from purpose, community, selfhood, and character. You can improve the list above. You can see, though, that such board training does double duty. The board learns to plan for the organization, and lead it. But each board member also learns to lead at another table, where important decisions are made, the table where each will plan his or her last will and testament. Be the change!

What will such passionate legacy planning do for philanthropy at the grassroots level? Add zeros. Two zeros or three. Donors give the interest on the interest to charity. At death we are talking about fractions of the whole net worth, not interest on the interest. That money will pass one way or another. Let us make sure it passes with purposes consistent with who the donor is. The celebrity who gave $1,000 for his mother might bequeath several million in her honor, that being a small fraction of his estate.

We are all connected. To what is your final plan connected? Does it honor those who came before? Does it inspire those who come after? What does it make possible, and what does it shut down, cut off, and end? What dies with you? What lives on?

"Be the change you wish to see in the world." Write the estate plan that best reflects who you are. 

Such training treats the rich not as means to an end, but as Kant said, as "members of the Kingdom of Ends." We assume that through those with great capacity, great things will be done, if we all just pause and reflect for a moment before plunging into the tax driven details. Breathe in confusion, fear, and death. Breathe out love, faith, and peace.

As you know, it comes down to worksheets. For legacy planning too there are worksheets we could use to help donors take charge of their own plans, lives, and posterity. We are not asking for money, we are making a gift.

A philanthropic ecosystem in which advisors, fundraisers, board members, high capacity funders, and their families collaborate to achieve high and noble ends, that is what I have been thinking about, here in my cubicle by day. Last night, lying on my right side, curled as usual in a fetal position, I dreamt of a zoo without walls. Delighted, I turned on my tummy, and was horrified to see that my zoo without walls had only one creature in it, a noble lion, the king of beasts, his jaws flecked with blood.

In bringing together fundraisers, donors, families, and advisors am I bringing the herbivores to the carnivores in common purpose with the flies and the vultures? Yes! Is that such a bad thing if I can make a mighty buck off it? For I am the King of Beasts! Then I woke up with indigestion and went downstairs to watch the pitchmen on late night TV. I do that in a spirit of common purpose.

Law For Change:

LawForChange is a unique legal resource for people and organizations dedicated to improving lives and bringing about positive social change.  This site combines in one place a broad menu of legal information prepared by leading law firms and lawyers specifically tailored to the needs of social entrepreneurs and innovators, social enterprises, charities, community organizations,  philanthropies, faith-based organizations and all manner of nonprofit organizations (collectively referred to as "social sector organizations"). 

I have spent most of my spare moments for the last week reading Hildy's work. She speaks so directly to my own sense of reality that I am having to rethink most of what I do and teach. Ideals galore, but she has the tools and techniques to make it work, even for organizations with very limited resources.We are each other's missing piece.