I woke later than I wanted to.  I needed to study for Sunday and when the alarm went off a bit past six, I turned and reached out for Kathy.  Imagine my surprise when I found that Kathy had grown a substantial coat of fur overnight.  And was wearing a collar.  Apparently, (as I found out later) Kathy had gotten up in the middle of the night and returning to the bed, found a coon hound lying in her spot.  Rather than try to dislodge the tight ball of a canine, and risk waking her light sleeping husband, she elected instead to head down the hall.  Thus, Sadie found what she considered her rightful place - in the bed, at the head, oh so comfortable. I stroked her ears , turned over and found myself waking 40 minutes later.  Hence my day  started with a sizable delay.

Every once in a while, you hear a phrase that catches your attention.  The art of the words and the thought they capture are pretty accurate, even elegant in the meaning they convey.  Such is the case with a phrase I heard this week for the first time - "He wasn't born on third base".  The context was overhearing a conversation on the radio about a guy who had achieved great things in business in his life.  You know, the classic bootstrap story - came from poverty, sold donuts door to door and saved the profits to buy his first car, never went to college, started in the mailroom and went on to own a huge company and amass a fortune defined in the billions of dollars.  The kind of story that I wish was my own - at least the billions part.....so much cooler than having to work for it.  Hmm, where is that PowerBall ticket?.....oh sorry, was distracted there for a second.

Anyway, contrast that with the opposite.  Take away the first two words and you have a totally different meaning.  "Born on third base".  AKA, " trust fund baby", "born with a silver spoon in his mouth", "blue blood".  In other words, you start life with a huge advantage.  You are set up - the safety net of income, assets and wealth, is more a given than something that has to be chased after. I don't know that net very well.  Pension, we hardly knew ye....you get the drift.

When I lived in Richmond, Virginia,  I had the good fortune to work at one of the oldest commercial real estate firms in the country.  It was founded in 1910.  Harrison and Bates.  A bastion of genteel Southern business and relationships.  But populated at its founding by men who were already THERE.  Mr. Bates represented the Federal Reserve in their location search for the land they would purchase to build the Fed Bank Building in Richmond.  Talk about connected.  I interviewed twice with Harrison and Bates.  Once when I first was licensed.  They asked me three questions:  Is your family from Richmond?  How long have you lived here?  Do you belong to the Country Club of Virginia?  My answers: No, 5 years and no pretty much spelled employment doom for me.  'Thanks for coming in but we are looking for people with', and I loved this term, 'background'. I was not a background kind of guy.  I was a recently converted capitalist, straight out of a touring musician lifestyle.  I didn't know anyone or belong anywhere.  Poof, there goes that dream.

Fast forward 5 years later.  After working for one of the most successful commercial real estate syndicators in the US, I was making a job change, due to the business model of my company being basically deconstructed by changes in the IRS tax code.  This time, the experience that I had gained, along with my knowledge and relationships, got me another look and ultimately a job offer.  What a difference a change in perception makes.

While working there, I had more than occasion to join my more entitled friends for lunch at the Commonwealth Club.  Housed in a fortress like 100 year old brick building in the midst of downtown, this was a place of squash courts, polished heart pine floors, portraits of Stonewall Jackson on the wall, oriental rugs, gloved and suited employees and the best lunch buffet you have ever seen.  It was also easily the most exclusive join in the city.  Governors belonged here. The vetting process was legend and to be blackballed by anyone was a death knell to your membership hopes but also was a predictor of how you were going to ultimately fare in the conservative business hierarchy of Richmond.  Don't apply if there is ANY chance you would be rejected.  Once the new gets out that you didn't make it.....well imagine being rejected publicly for a wedding proposal on national TV.  That would be a fate considerably easier than recovering from your fail at CC membership.  

Here you met guys with three last names:  Names like "Turner Smithdeal Pennington III".  Or as we affectionately called him, "Trip".   (Or was it, Bunky?)  A guy like this was born on third base.  He went to an office in downtown at 9:30, made a few calls and then headed over to CC for a mid-day repast and to yuk it up with his buds over a gin tonic.  After lunch, he might head back to the office but he was just as likely to head over to the James River Course for an afternoon 18 with his wealth advisor to get ready for the Mid-Amateur.  Third base with home in sight - as a matter of fact, figuratively,  he had a twenty step lead and the catcher had just dropped a wild pitch heading towards the screen.  He could walk it in and score.

You are probably wondering, 'why do I need to know ANY of this, and has Jeff lost his mind?"

OK.  Spiritually speaking, Paul tells me in Ephesians 1 through 3 that I was born on third base with a twenty step lead.  The inheritance that Christ provides for me is such that I can rest in knowing that my life is secure.  Eternity is mine without reservation.  I have been vetted and accepted for and to a calling and sonship that is beyond imaginable value.  Exceedingly abundant.  More than I can ask or think.  With that in mind, I am also called to LIVE as if I had that inheritance, to reflect the privilege of being His son by being a clear image of my Savior.  

You don't own the truth. Let me stipulate that what I write today pertains to the cultural climate in our country, although I believe it applies to the West in general and certainly Europe. It doesn't take keen powers of observation to see that our culture today is defined today by a disparate group of voices, all clamoring for attention and claiming that their world view is the one that distinguishes itself above others. We are a culture and nation most accurately described as intensely polarized by moral and political disintegration. Our moral fiber has been steadily unraveling before our very eyes at an accelerating pace. Starting with the coming of age of the baby boomers in the decade of the 1960's, American society began to question the foundations of truth. This expression found its voice in the lives of hippies who distrusted the government, and the civil rights movement which rightly questioned the fabric of the order of race. It accelerated with the sexual revolution in the 1970's, and was fueled by the growth of material success and widespread growth in the prosperity in the 1980's. The 1990's brought us the advent of technology and the increasing isolation of individuals from their peers, as we entered into cyber-worlds of our own choosing. The internet gave us the freedom to access information and order our lives around belief systems that increasingly became postmodern and self-indulgent. We arrived in the 2000's with the rise in terrorism, brought to our shores first in the early 1990s and then with devastating effect on 9/11. Suddenly, we were not safe. In the six years since we elected the current president, our country is more polarized, angry and divided than anytime in my lifetime. This is not an imagined fiction; it is institutionalized in the shrill and dissonant discourse in the media. It is exemplified in social media, which gives us all a platform to express our views, at any time and gain the attention of friends or of viral millions. The National Security Council of the White House has a Twitter account. The president takes a smiling selfie while at the funeral of a world respected leader. Not much gravitas in the Oval Office. In our colleges, deans and chancellors bend to the will of special interest groups, who demand trigger warnings in the descriptions and syllabus of courses that advise potential students that certain points to be discussed could offend their narrowly held individual belief systems. The left has overtaken free speech, re-defining ordinary disagreement, even in the most measured tones, as hate speech. No one is safe from being branded as guilty, and with no justification. Anyone who disagrees with them is publicly excoriated by a willing cabal of the three mainstream television networks. Our culture is best described as self-focused, entitled and demanding. Demanding of individual recognition, unlimited personal autonomy and the endless awarding of 'rights'. How did we get this way? Our institutions have lost their elasticity to allow people within our culture to live in tolerance, individual expression and self-actualization. All in the name of allowing people within our culture to live in tolerance, individual expression and self-actualization. We no longer have a shared set of moral values that define a broad sense of cohesiveness and unified vision of America. Instead we have replaced these ideals with a rigid and emotionally violent vision of elevating the individual above all things, where the government, our beloved guardian, is the supposed enforcer and answer to all things. In the word of God, we see Satan offering Jesus the three lies of self. The enemy of our souls asks Jesus to make bread from stones, offering Him the lie that what we do makes us valuable to others. Satan then offers Jesus the kingdom of the world, fostering the lie that what we have or possess gives us meaning and purpose. He finally tells Jesus to throw himself down from the temple, knowing that if Jesus did, he would be saved by the angels and all would worship him. This third lie is that we are valuable because of what others think of us. In a world overcome by the value of self, let us remember that we don't own the truth. We cannot bend the truth or redefine it. God is truth and He created it; we are simply custodians of His truth. And the greatest of these truths is that we are a wisp of vapor, a minute ray of light through a prism, a droplet in an endless ocean. All subject to the majesty, power and omnipotence of an infinite God. Jesus rightly resisted the enemy's urgings to place Himself above God, honoring and worshiping God in His responses to the temptations. In a world gone mad through self -absorption, should we not do the same?