Is your house big enough? Do you need more room? Will your family be happier in a bigger home?

I think my perspective on this issue was shaped a bit last week by a converation I had with a few members of an American family that has lived and worked most of the time over the last nine years in the foothills of the Himalayas.

*****
As I have intimated in some recent posts in my personal blog, my wife and I spent last week in Thailand with field staff of one of the international charities we help fund.

While there, I volunteered to work on the security detail. As I sat in front of the bookstore they had set up checking people’s ID tags, I stopped a couple of young girls because I couldn’t see their wristbands.

One of them looked at me with a bit more than passing interest: “Are you Mr. Holzmann?”

“Yes.”

She lit up. “We use Sonlight!”

I won’t bore you with the details of that portion of our conversation.

It turns out, they are two children in a family of five kids. They live somewhere in the foothills of the Himalayas and move twice a year to live with a certain nomadic water buffalo-herding tribe that has a summer home and a winter home.

Interesting people!

About 10 or 15 minutes after we began talking, their dad came up. And the subject matter of our discussion broadened a bit. I asked him more about their living circumstances and how one lives with nomads. –I had never met anyone from the West who had adopted and/or adapted to such a lifestyle.

For some reason I can’t remember now, at one point, the dad made a comment that has stuck with me: “When we go back to the States,” he said, “I have found that families with five or more kids always seem to have more room to invite us in than do families with only one or two children. Even families with huge houses and just one child: they never seem to have room to invite us to stay with them. But families with five kids–even though their houses are much smaller: they always have room.

“We may sleep on the floor (which is fine with us). But they always have room. The more kids they have, the more room they seem to have.”

My thought: The physical space is rarely the issue. More often, we are limited by the size of our heart.

Indeed, as I was thinking about what my new friend had to say, I remembered our family’s time in southern California 20 years ago.

We lived in an 800-square-foot hovel. I think that’s the right word. It had holes in the outside walls so big you could see daylight through them when it was light outside and, in the winter, the wind would blow the kitchen cupboards open. For the kids to go to the bathroom, they had to walk through every room in the house–from their room, through Sarita’s and my bedroom, through the living room area, through the kitchen, through the back hallway (where the water heater was) and into the bathroom.

All four children–two girls and two boys–shared a single bedroom

And y’know what? No one complained!

In fact, though we owned four beds (two bunkbeds), until just a few months before we moved (when our eldest daughter was about 11 and a half), all four children preferred to sleep in one bed. We used to talk about how they were like sausages in a container. They preferred to share the bed. There was something reassuring about that closeness, I think.

And our kids got along. They were close. Despite dramatic personality differences. Despite the age range. Despite the fact that they spent most of the time together because we were homeschooling as well.

The physical closeness, I think, actually contributed to our children interacting with each other. It helped enlarge their hearts to make room for others.

FWIW. I thought I’d share my thoughts.

And my prayer: May I have a heart big enough for whatever God calls me to . . . unhindered by my physical surroundings!

I mentioned that profits have to do with increased wealth; and increased wealth is not the same as cash. If we fail to understand those differences, we can run into some serious trouble.

I thought I would illustrate what I am talking about. Read the rest of this entry »

Charitable giving comes in many forms. Cash donations and hands-on volunteerism are only two.

I have mentioned before the Sonlight Rice Bag Project. The repercussions of that project continue to reverberate in my mind and heart.

This morning, I woke up with the idea that I should write to some people with whom our family business competes. Not about our business, per se, but, rather, about opportunities we–both they and we–have to influence our customers for good.

This is a slightly edited version of the letter I sent. Read the rest of this entry »

Aging with Dignity of Tallahassee, FL, has produced a tremendously helpful document called Five Wishes that helps users think through the answers to key questions Living Wills are meant to answer, questions having to do with

1. The person you want to make care decisions for you when you are unable.
    
2. The kind of medical treatment you will want . . . or don’t want when in extremis (near death).
    
3. How comfortable you want to be when in extremis.
    
4. How you will want people to treat you when in extremis.
    
5. What you want your loved ones to know with respect to you wishes at–and after–death.

Aging with Dignity says, Read the rest of this entry »

Last Monday I got to see a demonstration of software meant to make the administration of private foundations much easier. Among other things, the program offers compliance services, including a review of grants to ensure there is no self-dealing; a review of potential recipients of grants to ensure they are, in fact, 501(c)(3) organizations, and thus eligible to receive tax-deductible donations; and a constant vigil over total annual foundation disbursements to ensure that the foundation hits its five percent (5%) minimum distribution requirement.

It was this last service that caught my eye. Read the rest of this entry »

Charles W. Collier, in Wealth in Families, expands on the theme urged by James E. Hughes, Jr. to which I’ve alluded in the past–the idea that, as Collier quotes Hughes (perhaps from a personal interview; I have been unable to find these exact words in either of Hughes’ books themselves): “A family’s duty is to work to preserve the family’s principal wealth-generating assets: its human and intellectual capital. The family leadership and governance structure should provide an environment that values and enhances each family member’s ability to pursue their individual life calling.”

As I have meditated on Hughes’ comments and, more recently, on what Collier says, I have realized, on the one hand, that they call our attention to things most of us ignore to our peril. On the other, I have realized that there are several other asset classes that they don’t really address.

I would like to call your attention to four such non-financial, wealth-generating asset classes. What follows, then, combines a bit of Hughes, a bit of Collier, and serious dollop of John Holzmann as well. Read the rest of this entry »

There is a common phrase among charities–at least among Christian charities–that donors should consider giving of their Time, their Talents, and their Treasure (i.e., time, skills, and money). The alliteration certainly makes the concept easy to remember. But does the phrase even make sense?

Last week, while I was at the Generosity Forum meeting, Gary Hoag challenged the concept. He said the phrase not only implies something that is impossible, it also encourages a wicked attitude on the part of those who “buy” its meaning. Specifically, he said, we can’t speak of owning (possessing, holding, having) time in the same way that we own (possess, hold, or have) talents and treasure. Time is not an asset in the same way that talents and treasure are.

He had two reasons for objecting.

First, Read the rest of this entry »

Back on August 6th and 7th, I wrote about some of the things I was learning in Carol Weisman’s slim but inspiring book Raising Charitable Children.

If you have children–or grandchildren–from about four- or five-years old through high school, this book is for you. Weisman offers incredibly helpful, totally practical counsel for parents or grandparents of the entire spectrum. And she is no armchair philosopher; she has “been there and done that.” Moreover, she has obviously thought long and hard about the kinds of practical questions you’d expect most authors to forget.

Some examples: Read the rest of this entry »