Who's in charge here?

I've been privileged to be the listing agent on a home that is in short sale. It's not something I went looking for, it fell in my lap because of the good reputation I had in the days when I was a real estate broker for a living. The lesson here is: It pays to maintain that license -- you never know when it will come in handy.

The home is in good condition, well-maintained, but it was built in the 1930s, when building codes weren't what they are today. That means that the foundation is considered inadequate, though it held up fine during the 1989 earthquake, the sewer lines are too small by today's standards, etc.

We had an agreement for a purchase price that satisfied both the first and second lenders. The first lender was getting almost all their money back, and under CA law, can't get a deficiency judgment on a purchase money first mortgage. They agreed to this amount because the offer was about the same as the value put on the house by the bank's appraiser. The second lender was getting pennies on the dollar at close, because the first lender knows they won't settle without some payment. Although the second mortgage holder can get a deficiency judgment against the (former) homeowner under CA law, apparently it's common to settle these after the sale, for a few more pennies on the dollar. (I really have to wonder about the financial strength of the banks here, and the efficacy of the stress tests -- I suspect that these junior liens are being carried on the books at a lot more than 10 cents on the dollar.)

It's common for a buyer to try to renegotiate a bit after inspections, when the termite, contractor's and other inspections put a price on the repairs to be done. And usually, you can finesse a few thousand dollars, by everyone kicking in some -- seller, both agents, and the buyer compromising their request. But holy carp! The buyer is asking for a price reduction so big that it wipes out the pennies on the dollar for the second (which they would never agree to in any case), both agents and a huge chunk of the first mortgage. I really don't know if this is posturing, or if the buyer doesn't really want the house, but figures, hey, if I can get it for that much less than the appraised value, hell, then it's worth it.

Here's the weird part: the owner/seller of the house is not in a position to decide what happens, what counteroffer is made. The first lender is. So who really owns the house? Who's in charge here? And in fact, since the seller realizes that the amount that the house sells for won't change his situation one iota, he's pretty neutral. The homeowner here has effectively become the agent of the bank. How weird is that? There used to be an old joke, something people would say when they bought a house with a mortgage, which was that the bank owned the house. In a short sale, it's pretty much true. The seller owns the house in name only, and the banks make all the decisions.

That brings me to the bigger questions. What happens when someone has no equity? And what is equity, anyway? I think that here, equity doesn't just mean housing equity, it means a stake in the economy, a stake in our society.

One can definitely have a stake in society without a financial stake -- that's called community, or emotional connection. But so much of what used to be supplied by community has been replaced by market forces (think restaurants instead of home-cooked food, cleaning services instead of the family cleaning the house, car detailing instead of Dad washing the car, child care centers instead of Mom or Grandma or a neighbor watching the kids), that non-financial equity has declined substantially, over at least the last 30 years, replaced by financial equity -- money, in one form or other.

So as our financial equity declines, we have to/are substituting community again. That substitution, though, has consequences for the economy. As more people are out of work, they are substituting community for things they used to pay for. That puts more people out of work. So the monetary economy declines, while the non-monetary community grows stronger and larger.

But what happens to someone who has no financial equity, and no community ties? Do they become violent, because they're angry, and don't care what happens to them? Do they become depressed and suicidal? And as a society, what do we do about that?

The Fundamental Dichotomy of Churches (and Ashrams, etc.)

Churches (here I include ashrams, temples, etc., but for convenience will use the word 'church' to denote all of these) actually have 2 purposes:

• the development of the members' spirituality
• community

The announced purpose of a church is to develop its members' spirituality, no matter what language you'd like to use to describe this: moral sense, closeness to God (Allah, J_w_, etc.), etc. Thus the prayers, meditations, sermons, etc.

The other purpose of the church is to foster community, so we have people with whom to learn, to celebrate, to mourn, to share daily joys and sorrows, to learn, to play, to share food, to raise children.

But for the person who is growing faster spiritually than the community is growing, these two begin to feel like they are antithetical to each other. That is, I want to be part of the community, because of the warm feeling and support I feel as part of it, but it limits my spiritual development, because to stay at one with the community, I have to develop more slowly than I'd really like to develop, or maybe not develop at all. What I choose depends on which is my higher priority -- my development or my participation in the community. So if it's more important to me to grow spiritually, then I'll move on, perhaps to another community, or perhaps to none at all. If it's more important to me to have community, I will either compromise my development, or hide my development.

This dichotomy plays out for the church as a whole, too. Each church member's spiritual development happens at its own pace -- some don't develop at all, others bound ahead, still others grow at a moderate pace in their understanding. So at what rate does the community as a whole develop? Generally not with those who are changing the fastest. Perhaps it develops at the rate of the slowest, or perhaps at the rate of the bulk of the members. Whatever rate it changes at, will not suit everyone.

But community thrives on stability and with numbers -- the more people who are in the community, the more there are for the support of all in good times and bad. The longer they are there, the more trust there is among them, and therefore the group is stronger, too. So it is natural for the community to want to keep people to keep them 'in the fold'. That means keeping them growing (or even not growing) spiritually at the same rate, which will, by definition, be inappropriate for some members. The means people will keep coming and going as they match the spiritual intent/level of the church. But it's bad for community to have constant change in its membership.

Blackberry Wisdom

What do you see when you look at a blackberry bramble? A weed? A problem? Something that hurts you? Or like me, do you see something truly admirable?

I’ve been working in what I loosely call my garden this summer, attempting to rescue the yard from the overgrowth of a couple of years of neglect. In the hours I’ve spent there, mostly weeding and pruning (with scratches and bites to match), I’ve come to really admire the blackberries. They have a lot to teach us:

Have back-up systems – Blackberries have a couple of ways of reproducing themselves. First, they reproduce in the usual way of plants, by seeds -- lots of seeds! Every plant has many berries, and every berry has many seeds, so each plant has thousands if not millions of chances to reproduce that way alone. And those berries are delicious, so they get eaten by humans and other sweet-seeking creatures, who poop them out in other locations, where they can root and become new plants.

Blackberries also reproduce by rooting the plant’s canes. That is, each stem, called a cane, is only moderately self-supporting. It can rely on other structures, and act like a vine, but if there’s nothing to support it, it grows up and out for some length and then bends over. When it hits the ground, it roots itself, and more or less becomes its own new plant.

(Side note: if you’ve been reading these posts for a while, you may have noticed that I was mostly absent in August & September. It’s because my hard drive, which crashed, was not adequately backed up. Not having a good back up is very expensive both in time and money. It almost put me out of business. So please take my advice – back up, back up, back up!)

Be Flexible – One of the tenets of NLP (NeuroLinguistic Programming) is “the most flexible system always wins”. It’s surely true of blackberries, which must be the cockroaches of the plant world. They grow in sunny locations, partly sunny locations and shady locations. They grow in rainy climates (we had them in our yard in NJ), they grow in dry climates (it never rains in the summer in northern CA). They grow where winter involves a hard freeze, and where it doesn’t. They grow on mountain sides, in forests, on lake shores and by the sides of roads. They grow like vines, supported by fences, trellises, trees, other bushes, you name it. They grow without supports, too, and can become very effective hedges.

Be Generous – Blackberries put out lots and lots of berries. In fact, early in summer, my husband looked out at the back yard and said, it’s a jungle out there. I replied that that jungle was going to feed us, so I refused to cut them down. And I totally underestimated the generosity of the plants! In addition to a daily serving of berries for about 2 months, I’ve made 2 cobblers, a blackberry chocolate cake, and blackberry coulis. Yum! So the weeds that my husband saw became a delicious addition to our diet. And if we weren’t westerners, with toilets, we’d have been planting berry seeds everywhere we went.

Be Persistent – Blackberries put out flowers, which become berries with seeds, continuously for over 2 months — that’s 1/6 of the year! If a freeze or a hail storm kills a bunch of flowers or berries before they've had a chance to mature — there’ll be more! And have you ever tried to eradicate a blackberry plant? You can’t, (or at least I can’t). Unless you get every part of a root, it will grow back. They are even growing from the spaces between our pavers! And that is part of their success.

Know that you are part of a community – Because those canes become new plants, still tied to the old plants, all the blackberry canes are simultaneously individual and part of the same plant. They are part of a community that has the same genetic heritage. We’re like that, too. As humans, we are part of many communities, both our genetic ones and ones of choice (where we live, where we work, where we recreate, etc.) and we would do well to remember that.

Protect yourself – Blackberries have thorns, lots of thorns — thorns on the canes, even thorns on the underside of the leaves. No animal is going to want to eat those canes, so they can grow undisturbed. And blackberries seem to have a fondness for poison oak. The two plants often grow together, which is further protection, at least from humans.

Point of view matters – If I look at the same plant from above, below, left and right, I’ll see different ripe berries which I can see only from that vantage point. We need to remember that, for other subjects. Other people will have other views. Your point of view is valid — and so is theirs, and if you take the best from all of your points of view, you‘ll have a much more complete picture of the situation than just seeing your own point of view.

It’s worth going over the same ground again and again – If you’ve done any internal work at all, on emotional issues, you have noticed that an issue you think is resolved will often pop up again, and it’s frustrating. But the blackberries have given me a different take on this issue. I picked berries from the same plot of ground, from the same canes for over 2 months. Emotional issues are similar — while you may have resolved one aspect of the issue, like picking one berry, there are lots more berries on the same cane, they’re just not ripe at the same time. Eventually, you run out of berries to pick, just as you eventually resolve all the aspects of your issue.