The Grinch, the Church and What my Children taught me at dinner

                                                                             

     A few blogs ago, I was lamenting the unnecessary

difficulties I was having with one of the churches that I am refiing.  There are some loans that are easy, some are difficult and some are downright impossible.

     And that's not because of the details, it's because of the people involved. 

     But even though I was venting on some of those difficulties in an earlier blog, this evening brought to light some of the other difficult details of church lending.

     My family and I were pulling into the parking lot of one of our local restaurants.  And throughout the entire trip there, I was detailing in great degree to my ever-patient wife my latest fiery hoop I was going through with this church loan.  I was not complaining about the church elders, their demands or any of their supporters.  (I have a rule on that - no one hears me scream in the shower and I never complain in public about clients.)  Lenders, that's a different story.  I will complain about them, but only in close confidence.  And unfortunately for my family, they qualify as close. :)

     I said, "They're just not listening, it's a simple loan and the church already has the DSR" talking about the lenders to my wife. 

     "Sorry," was her reply.

     And then something strange happened.  Strange, but in memory trigger sorta way strange. 

     My daughter, who was sitting along with her brother way in the back of our van said, "Why won't these people just loan them the money?" 

     And her older brother followed this with, "Yeah, they're a church."

     And immediatly my brain jumped to  "How the Grinch stole Christmas" where Cindy Lou Who catches the Grinch as he's leaving her house with all their gifts and even their tree.

     And while my skull was filled with this childhood imagery, it was clearly too busy to watch over my mouth because I blurted out, "Because no one wants to foreclose on God."

     Now my children know what I do and they know the word foreclosure so this wasn't totally foreign to them, but again with me still really mentally-occupied with Dr. Suess I continued with, "Guys, think about what a church sells.  What do they sell?  Nothing.  They work on faith and they work for generosity and if people aren't generous enough, well sometimes it just doesn't work out."

     By this time, they were exiting the van, my wife already had and I was turning of the ignition.  And I was alone long enough to taste the weight of what I had just said.  Those last few sentences hung in the air like a fog with no one to break the silence and me with plenty of time to digest the reality of what I had taken on.

     Foreclosure is an ugly reality in this business.  Foreclosure doesn't care if you're an exotic dancer or a minister.  It doesn't care how you vote, it doesn't care if you vote.  It doesn't care if you're black, white, male, female, young, old, high school drop out or Mensa Member.  Foreclosure just is or it isn't.  It's a lot like pregnancy - you either are or you aren't. 

     And as this rush of reality came over me, and I had only a few moments left before I had to be sitting down to eat with my clan, I felt a little awkward.  I had just exposed my two children to a somewhat darker side of life than I had expected.  It wasn't something I regretted because they were bound to see something like this again as I do a lot of foreclosures.  But this was the first time they had associated it with a church. 

I giggled as I said to myself that I had officially broken down the separation of "church and money" for them.  I thought it was funny anyway. :)

     But it has given me pause to reflect on how we as Mortgage Brokers fight for our clients.  How we fight to get exceptions.  How we exchange info with one another to find out about what loans have worked before with what lender.  How in some ways it's not much different having a client you know is guilty and still trying to get him the best deal that's not even on the table.

     As Mortgage Brokers, we don't break the rules, (well, I don't anyway) for our customers.  But we sometimes bend them.

     Even if only because your son and daughter believe in you.

     Enjoy,