Death & Taxes

Happy Reality Check Day! Isn’t that what April 15th is? Isn’t today like a national holiday or something? Doesn’t it make its annual appearance faithfully every year like most holidays?

If only today were really a holiday? We get most holidays off, but today, because I have procrastinated until the bitter end, I will be consumed by doing my taxes well into the night. As the saying goes nothing is as sure as death and taxes.

But April started out to be such a good month with Easter and Conference.

I studied tax law in law school, but knowing the law and living the law are two different things. The laws of prosperity are closely linked to the laws of the harvest. Even as you sow so shall ye reap. And you reap what you sow if you don’t plan ahead for taxes.

When we fail to plan ahead for taxes we plan to fail. But, more often than not, like a head on collision, we are blinded sided by tax issues. I have talked to more people this year about tax problems than any previous year. One individual inherited a lump sum of money from the death of a relative. Although he had put some money aside for taxes, the increase in income put him into a higher tax bracket and he owes more money than he has left in his inheritance. Another woman won prizes on a game show, only to have to sell the bulk of the prizes to pay the taxes owed. Another individual spent thousands of dollars on medical bills but did not qualify for the itemized deduction for these expenses and has no money to pay his taxes. Still another individual took out his retirement to start a business, only to find that his capital gains taxes are greater than the income he made from the business all year.

My own procrastination is related to my bigger problem of fiscal irresponsibility. I should pay my taxes quarterly. I do not. Therefore, I don’t live within the reality of what my real tax burden is and I don’t, like the grasshopper, put enough away for taxes. I get caught up in the pursuit of wealth only to find that April 15th is an annual wake up call. Too bad this prodigal tax payer doesn’t learn his hard lessons and repeats that same mistake every year.

For me the pursuit of wealth can become a material blindness. I think I suffer from financial reality syndrome which is related to a far worse disease: Imagination Disorder. When we want something to go a certain way, sometimes we desire it so much that we pretend things will be ok. We become pretenders and then spenders and then defenders until eventually our make believe financial world appears to be real. But that reality is shattered on tax day. What goes up must come down.

Tax judgment day, in some small way, is a reflection of what the real judgment day will be like: we will be required to make an accounting. If we got caught in the affluenza trap, if the financial mist of darkness blind us into thinking that “All is well in Zion”, then our lives will reflect that we came up short in what matters most.

The “All is well in Zion” syndrome is all too prevalent in today’s society because too many focus on vain imaginations and the light of reality is slowly growing darker. We spend time and money on that which is of no worth and that which cannot satisfy. Death and taxes are painful because they are real and if you are like me, the reality hits hard for those who don’t face reality very well.

But reality checks can be a good thing. We can, as the prodigal son did, come to ourselves and learn lessons the hard way. The law of the harvest can work for us, not just against us.

Last weekend I spent time in my yard getting ready for summer. I weeded and pruned and raked and trimmed. As I worked I reflected on my childhood and all the times I spent working in my grandfathers garden. My grandparents were especially on my mind because my grandmother is very ill. I thought of her raspberry patch and how I would, every year, prune it. My grandfather has long since passed away, but I remember the instructions he gave me concerning the berry patch. He told me to cut every branch down to the ground. Only a little stub would be left.

I wondered if this was such a good idea to cut off all the branches. But I followed his instructions, and, every year, even though the branches were chopped all the way down, they would grow back with plenty of berries.

At first the pruning wasn’t a problem, but because the rows were long, and there were so many rows, by the time I got to the last row I was on my knees. I was on my knees because the pain in my back was so intense I had to crawl along just to finish the pruning.

One day while, on my knees I thought of someone else who was on his knees in a garden. That touching moment in the garden inspired me to write the following poem.

My Grandpa Jesse's Garden

When I was young there was only one garden that I knew
My Grandpa Jesse’s garden where so many good things grew.

And Grandma helped us mind a patch where berries grow aplenty,
we often ate so many though we left our cans half empty.

And oh the corn it grew so high you couldn't find your brother,
But pumpkins and squash they left us room to chase around each other.

And each potato harvest was like searching for real gold,
the tractor often struck it rich at least a hundred fold.

And when the spuds were gathered into large potato sacks,
we'd wave the tractor trailer on and follow in its tracks.

And when the rains had ended we would chase the frogs around,
or hoe out all the ugly weeds from newly watered ground.

Looking back at such fond memories, they never seemed like toil,
God blessed our lives with countless hours of tending our Grandfathers soil.

But since that time another garden has come into my view
One Grandpa helped us understand and Grandma knew was true

A garden wherein one man knelt there all alone,
and suffered for all the sins the world had ever known.

The only harvest that day was a harvest full of pain,
But somehow the seeds were planted for our eternal gain.

Yet in Gethsemene I think I'd find the very thing,
That Grandpa Jesse's garden would every season bring.

There's a love within the garden, that only children know,
the ones who plant the seeds of faith and watch the branches grow.

From these two gardens then I've learned a simple truth:
my Grandpa Jesse's garden was the Eden of my youth.


When I am brought to my me knees by realities like tax woes, I am reminded of this poem and I find comfort and courage in the fact that I don't face my realities alone.