in relationship................................

       That means that the original basis of Abrahamic monotheism remains, whatever the state of science.  For religious knowledge as understood by the Hebrew Bible is not to be construed on the model of philosophy and science, both left-brain activities.  God is to be found in relationship, and in the meanings we construct when, out of our experience of the presence of God in our lives, we create bonds of loyalty and mutual responsibility known as covenants.  People have sought in the religious life the kind of certainty that belongs to philosophy and science.  But it is not to be found.  Between God and man there is moral loyalty, not scientific certainty.

-Rabbi Jonathan Sacks,  The Great Partnership: Science, Religion, and the Search for Meaning

Partners............................

 . . . religion and science are to human life what the right and left hemispheres are to the brain.  They perform different functions and if one is damaged, or if the connections between them are broken, the result is dysfunction. . . .

     Science is about explanation.  Religion is about meaning.  Science analyses, religion integrates.  Science breaks things down to their component parts.  Religion binds people together in relationships of trust. Science tells us what is.  Religion tells us what ought to be. Science describes.  Religion beckons, summons, calls.  Science sees objects.  Religion speaks to us as subjects.  Science practices detachment.  Religion is the art of attachment, self to self, soul to soul.  Science sees the underlying order of the physical world.  Religion hears the music beneath the noise.  Science is the conquest of ignorance.  Religion is the redemption of solitude.

-Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, The Great Partnership:  Science, Religion and the Search for Meaning

Roles..............................

     Feminist ideology has never dealt honestly with the role of the mother in human life.  Its portrayal of history as male oppression and female victimage is a gross distortion of the facts.  There was a rational division of labor from the hunter gatherer period that had its roots not in the male desire to subjugate and imprison but in the procreative burden which has fallen on women from nature.  It is woman who bears most of the responsibility in the process of procreation.  The male contribution to procreation is momentary, a mere pinprick, but the human female makes an enormous investment in the nine months of pregnancy, which could formerly not be forestalled or controlled as it is today.  Even now, pregnancy is a risky business that can result in the death of the mother.  Anything can go wrong and often does.  Before modern medicine, the mortality rate in childbirth was enormous.  In early history, women in advanced pregnancy or just after childbirth were extraordinarily vulnerable;  they could not fend for themselves and required the protection of men.  Feminist theory has been grotesquely unfair to men in refusing to acknowledge the enormous care that most men have provided to women and children.  The atrocious exceptions have been used by feminist theorists to blame all men, when over the whole of human history, men have given heroically of their energy and labor and indeed their lives to benefit and protect women and children.  Feminism has been very small-minded in the way it has treated male history.  Feminism cannot continue with this poisoned rhetoric - it is dangerous for young women to be indoctrinated to think in that negative way about men.

-Camille Paglia, as culled from here

Doing business the old-fashioned way.....

In the speeches and writings of his lifetime, Napoleon Hill offered dozens, perhaps hundreds, of different examples of Master Mind Alliances, but none would ever achieve the scope, depth, longevity, and impact of the alliance that he and Stone forged over the ensuing months and decades.  They would never have a contract;  their working agreement would always be based on common goals, and their business relationship was based on trust and a handshake.

Michael J. Ritt, Jr. and Kirk Landers,  A Lifetime of Riches:  The Biography of Napoleon Hill

To trust, or not to trust - that is the question.....

John E. Smith starts out with this Samuel Johnson quote:
“It is better to suffer wrong than to do it, and happier to be sometimes cheated than not to trust.”
and then asks, "You buy this?"

My answer, "Yep."  The few people I know who are incapable of trusting are the unhappiest people I know.  It is like a disease that destroys all the good and all the relationships in their lives.  On the flip side of that, our business model has long been based on partnerships.  Successful partnerships require trust between the partners.  As we have said more than a few times, "a handshake is better than a contract;  you can break a contract, but you can't break a handshake."  Lest you think we are naive, we don't enter into partnerships with just anybody.  As one of my favorite presidents said, "Trust, but verify."  Trusting has worked for us, not all the time, but the vast majority of the time, and we're pretty happy guys.

Gratitude..............................

Thirty years ago David Anderson convinced me that, as a team, we could be successful selling investment and commercial real estate in Newark, Ohio.  At the time we were both selling houses for different brokerage companies, and, while doing passably well, we were both unable to see ourselves doing that sort of work for an entire career.  And so, on this date in 1982, after some modest haggling about the shape and nature of our venture, Anderson Layman Company came into being.

As business partnerships go, this one would have to be considered a success.  We are still friends.  We are still partners. We are still showing up (most days) for interesting and challenging work.  Our business has evolved over the years, partially due to personal quirks, but more often as a reflection of market conditions and responses to opportunities.

In many ways, business partnerships are like marriages.  The  richer and poorer and in sickness and in health parts certainly come into play. As do lessons learned about teamwork, trust, acceptance, forgiveness, humility, commitment, patience, perseverance, loyalty, and respect.

So David, Happy Anniversary and Thanks.......................