2022 Thanksgiving Reflections

I love writing this piece every year - I absolutely love it. The house is very quiet right now, I have my immediate family and my limited extended family all here, and we have a day ahead of us of football, food, and family. It doesn’t get much better than this setting, these people, and this occassion.

In fact, one of the only things I love as much as Thanksgiving Day every year is the other 364 days on the calendar. Yep. I said it. I love every single day. I love Thanksgiving because I have so much to be thankful for on the days we don’t formally call Thanksgiving. On a day that isn’t Thanksgiving when I am not waking up at my desert house ready for turkey, family, and fun, I am waking up somewhere where I know it is going to be a wonderful day ahead. Yes, most days involve some stress, work, and even chaos. But I do not care. I love my family, my calling, and the various settings that represent my real life. I am thankful for the fact that I have so many abundant reasons to be thankful even when it is not a holiday, a special reflection day, or an occasion for emotion and introspection. I just think life is wonderful, and I think that because it is. I am thankful for a perspective of positivity, for a daily hope, aspiration, and attitude that generally lends itself to gratitude. I have a good life, sure, but things do not always go my way in life. But when they don’t, I am thankful that it does not undo me. Somewhere along the way God taught me how to live life on life’s terms, not my own, and I can see clearly a compelling pull for Thanksgiving when I think this way. 365 days of gratitude seems like it should be a bare minimum.

But on this special day when I dig in for a public airing of particulars, allow me a few moments.

I did my work-related list yesterday, and it was a doozy. We will close 2022 as the biggest year in company history, breaking the record of 2021, which broke the record of 2020, and so forth and so on. Every year for 22 years now our biggest and best year has been our most recent one, and I still can’t believe that is true. We have never once had a year of going backwards, no matter what markets have done, and we now are at a size and scale where I can look at each year both quantitatively and qualitatively. I think I am more proud of our team’s culture, unity, and character than I even am the nearly $1 billion of new business we have brought in this year, not to mention one of the best years of portfolio management we will ever have. This company is a calling and telos for me and Joleen, and we love what TBG is about with our whole hearts.

Speaking of Joleen, my partner, my best friend, my soulmate, and my one true advocate on this side of glory. I am so, so thankful.

Our three kids - Mitchell, Sadie, and Graham. Mitchell has become one of the funniest, smartest, and most capable young men I have seen. As he navigates through his senior year and prepares for the next step in his journey, I can’t say how thankful I am for this life, his character, and his entire persona. It would be hard to be more impressed than I am of him. Sadie is a treasure in whatever room she walks into - beautiful, smart, and competitive to the point of frightening. But I mean competitive in an internal way. I do think she’d obliterate anyone she had to, but what I really believe drives her is an internal desire to be who she wants to be. She is one of a kind, and watching her begin her high school journey these last few months has given me so much reason for Thanksgiving. And then there’s Graham, not really my baby boy any more at the age of 12, but always no matter what my real buddy - my early morning weekend partner, my OCD-sharing, planning-obsessed bundle of love. As sweet and caring as they come.

As Joleen always says, we may not be for everybody, but the five of us are a unit, and we love each other no matter what the rest of the world thinks of us. Not for everybody; but perfect for us.

I will take out the list of extra curricular things this year. Of course I still love USC football, book reading, Chinese food, New York City (the greatest city in the world), and all the small and big things that add so much depth and richness to the enjoyment of my life. I continue to have the ideal amount of small and big things which I treasure in my life, and which I will never take for granted. One of those things is “this time of year.” From late November until early January there is a special aura or dimension to the calendar and the daily routine. I love this entire season of life, and am so thankful for the nostalgia of the past, the joy of the present, and the hope for the future it all entails.

When I think of my friendships this Thanksgiving season, I continue to marvel at the longevity of those relationships most meaningful in my life. Aaron Bradford, Eric Balmer, Luis Garcia, Ryan Dennee, and Darin Dennee all have basically 30 years with me now (Ryan and Eric being a bit longer). You show me someone who has kept five of their closest friendships together for 30 calendar years and I will show you someone who is enjoying a meaningful life. The context and time served is not quite the same but Andrew Sandlin, Jeff Ventrella, and Brian Mattson have been dear friends for a long time as well, and we work very hard to keep each other sane on the daily in a world often striving to make us insane. All of my co-laborers in the cause of Pacifica Christian are friends, allies, and reasons for Thanksgiving. The whole school is a reason for Thanksgiving - a little daydream and belief that lingered in my head for many years, brought to a place of action and reality less than a decade ago, now representing one of the most thriving Christian high schools in the country. Thriving how? By teaching kids to think and live well, that’s how. Father Sirico and Larry Kudlow continue to bless me in ways they will only appreciate in the next life. Friends, mentors, and heroes. The National Review cause, mission, and endeavor remains the glue holding this conservative project together in a time where mindlessness is the more popular trait. I am thankful for my friends and colleagues there, for the angel who is Jack Fowler who brought me in, and for the ongoing work and focus of Rich Lowry who is deeply under-appreciated in our movement. And I am thankful for the memory of my lost friend, Brian Harrington, who I miss more this year than ever before, and who Paul Murphy and I enjoyed 12 years of lasting memories with that I will never take for granted.

And this brings me to my last comment in these Thanksgiving reflections. I am thankful that Tom Bonds is still with me, and will be with his family today on Thanksgiving. I am most certainly thankful for the 11 years of friendship and brotherhood I have had with Tom, but today I am thankful for the next 11 years we will have, and hopefully any more after that. Tom came within minutes of touching the face of God just four weeks ago as he suffered a brutal heart attack in South Dakota, and required one providential miracle after another in the hours that followed to stay with us. God was not done with him, and I am quite sure the real reason is that God needs Tom here longer for his wife, Julie, his own kids, and a whole bunch of grandkids growing by the year. But what God knew is that I need Tom, too, and I can’t bear the thought of losing another friend. So I am thankful that God kept Tom here, where he belongs now, yes for his family and loved ones, but for me, too. Because I love Tom like a brother, and I always will.

I do love my whole family, the extended Robertsons and Bahnsens and Mike Dogg that I will spend Thanksgiving with, and I do love so many more people around the country I simply haven’t been able to cover.

But what I am most thankful for today beyond the vast blessings of people and opportunity I cherish on the daily, is the God who saved me, who loves me, and who did for me what I simply could not do for myself. He remains the rock on which I stand, and in His light I see all light. Happy Thanksgiving all. Be thankful and be free.