retirement

The American Baptist Churches, USA was one of the first denominations to found a retirement plan for its clergy.   In 1911 a number of Baptist leaders, including John D. Rockefeller contributed seed money to start a fund for the "better maintenance of the ministry" and the Ministers and Missionaries Benefit Board was founded.  When I was ordained in 1978, the clear expectation was that every congregation in the ABC would contribute the equivalent of 16% of the pastor's salary & housing to a fully funded retirement account, death benefits, and disability insurance.  That meant that 13% of salary and housing went into a 403B account.  My salary was paltry in those days but thanks to the wonders of compound interest and the general upward trend of the stock market, I have a fairly healthy retirement account these days.  Last week, I received my annual report for that account along with a projection of what my retirement will look like in seven years.  At the same time we received my wife's report, which while significantly smaller than mine for a variety of reasons, makes a nice addition to mine.  I don't know what Social Security numbers are but after making a conservative guess, I felt quite confident about the future for my wife and me.  We won't be rich, but we will be OK and could even afford to stay in our home with a Central Coast sized mortgage payment.

Then I thought about my children... and I worried.  Neither of my adult children have begun retirement accounts and neither has a work situation that provides one.  My daughter is saddled with significant educational debt that precludes the possibility of saving for retirement even if she was foresighted enough to plan that far ahead.  My son's income is not adequate to provide for housing and food let alone for long term planning.  Clearly demographics will not allow Social Security to provide adequate retirement income for them unless there are significant changes made.  I worry for both of them and their families. 

So... dreaming of changes...  I'd like to see a restructuring of the way that college debt works, freeing an entire generation of those terrible burdens.  At the very least, it should be treated the same way as other debt.  At the very most, educational costs should be seen as a social investment in the future of our country.  After all, historically we have provided for free the amount of education required to be a productive member of society.  Today that includes either college or trade school following high school.  A high school education is simply inadequate these days.  Then, for social security... remove the cap.  Social Security is not a retirement plan.  An individual is not making contributions to an account from which they will draw.  It is a tax that funds an important safety net that currently is applied in the most regressive way possible.  And perhaps there should be a means test in receiving the benefits.  Those with income or assets beyond a certain level do not receive Social Security benefits...  Of course, there is the conservative solution for the problem - cut the benefits and push many seniors either into poverty or back into an anemic workforce which already penalizes those with the the least amount of skill or, as Dave Ramsey says, "economic value."

It is Not My World

Most of the time life moves along like a river - smoothly, quietly, consistently.  While you can never stick your foot in the same river twice, in large degree, just looking you'd never know that.  One day blends into the next.  Time goes by like an ever flowing stream.  The artificial breaks of months and years are just that.  Every now and then, though, something happens that is a big marker, separating one chapter of life from the previous one and it is obvious that nothing will ever be the same again.

Getting married is one of those jarring changes for many people.  It wasn't so for me.  I'm not sure whether that had to do with my lack of maturity or what, but I didn't feel as if things were particularly different afterwards.  The birth of my daughter and the adoption of my son were big deals.  In both cases, I knew that the world had changed.  When I was diagnosed with familial hyperlipidemia was another and I first really faced my own mortality.  In 2006 both of my parents died (two weeks apart).  That was a huge one as I realized that I was then in the oldest generation of my family.  I wasn't the son, I was the old man.

Yesterday another huge one happened.  At 7:15pm in Berkeley, CA, Corwin Alexander Busby arrived in the world.  We knew he was coming.  For 9 months, we've been getting ready both physically and emotionally.  His mother and father, Alexis and Christian have been full of dreams and anxieties.  I've been thinking about that day for months and realized that he brought with him a message of critical import.  The world is not mine.  Yes, I knew that some day I would die and that there would be people who followed after me who would never even hear my name let alone forget it.  Still, seeing yet another new generation begin reminded me in a life changing way that I am only visiting here for a short while.  Indeed the only thing that I leave behind are the relationships that have formed people who will form people who will form people for who knows how many generations.

It is sobering.  It is wonderful.  It is exciting.  It reminds me of what is real and important.  I can't wait to get that little boy in my arms and embrace a future that I will not live to see but which will go on none the less.

"It's Not My Country Anymore"

I've heard that said by a number of my very conservative friends.  I guess they have to decide that.  Clearly it is not the same country anymore.  Romney won a near historic percentage of the white vote and still lost the election.  It isn't a country controlled by white folk anymore.  More women were elected to the senate than ever before and one state - New Hampshire - has elected women to all of their leadership positions.  It is not a country run exclusively by men anymore.  Billionaires spent incredible amounts of money trying to buy the election Sheldon Adelson personally funded 6 campaigns with huge amounts of money and they all lost.  Yes, money still talks, but it is no longer the deciding factor and the plutocracy doesn't have free reign anymore. 

It is a different country than the one I knew as a child in the 50's and 60's.  I embrace it.  I'm excited by that.  I believe this new country embodies the hopes and dreams implicit in the experiment called the United States.  Still, it is different and my conservative friends need to make a decision whether they are part of this new expression of the United States.  Should they decide to withdraw... that's OK, but they cannot call themselves patriots.  They may say, "Obama is not my president," but if they do, they are also saying they are no longer part of this country.

For the Republicans, it will mean they need to re-evaluate and decide on new directions or they will be relegated to being a small regional party with less and less national voice.  At least for a while, they will still have the power of obstruction, but their positive voice will become more and more marginal as the demographics continue to change.  You can decide whether they are racist or not, but this election clearly was about race and their party is clearly identified racially.  A majority of white people voted for Romney.  Everyone else voted for Obama.  Obama won.  It is a new America.