SPIRITUAL ENRICHMENT
04/02/2003
THE ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 2003, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, April 2, 2003

SPIRITUAL ENRICHMENT

We've all seen the tabloid accounts of the Kennedy kid or the DuPont heir with problems. They may include excuses about the great pressures on children who inherit great wealth. It's hard to resist the temptation to be snide. Oh, sure, we think, "poor little rich kid."

Thayer Cheatham Willis has heard that before. "People's reaction often is 'give me a break,' " she said in a recent interview. But Willis has taken a more compassionate view in her new book, "Navigating the Dark Side of Wealth: A Life Guide for Inheritors" (New Concord Press, $25). It gives readers a persistently spiritual view of a subject she knows something about.

Willis, an Oregon resident, was in Western Virginia in March for the dedication of a new wing onto Cheatham Hall at Virginia Tech. That's right. Same Cheathams. Her father donated the money for the hall, which opened in 1972 to house what was then the Forestry and Wildlife Resources division of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. The building now houses the College of Natural Resources, and a 9,300-square-foot addition - again funded by the Cheatham family Ð was dedicated last month.

Julian North Cheatham, a Campbell County native, graduated from Tech in 1933, then went to work for his brother Owen's Georgia Hardwood Lumber Co. Julian Cheatham, now deceased, eventually rose to executive vice president of what became the Georgia-Pacific Corp. Today, his wife, a son, Willis and one other daughter are heirs to the fortune he amassed.

By her early 30s, Willis had struggled with many of the issues other inheritors of wealth face - learning to handle money for herself, three early marriages and divorces, a variety of jobs. Then came the day she heard about yet another suicide among her peers Ð the fifth such death. Having been in counseling herself, she determined to go back to school. She earned a master of social work degree and a license in clinical social work, specializing in helping other inheritors.

"At the time, I thought I was inventing the field," she said. Eventually, she discovered another six or seven such specialists around the country. Like herself, "the others who do this work are typically passionate about it."

Her clients often have difficulties with relationships, including what should be their "primary" relationship with God. "True happiness comes only from a profound sense of purpose and from nurturing relationships with others, particularly our relationship with God," she said.

Many also suffer from feelings of guilt over having so much money. For others, the problem is not a lack of self-esteem, but an overarching sense of entitlement - not only to money, but also to the privileges and deference that access to money confers.

While her book is aimed squarely at those who inherit large amounts of money, it also "is really for anyone who has experienced any kind of abundance," she said. Already she has received feedback from readers who were not inheritors but who found her observations helpful on subjects ranging from forgiveness and gratitude to child-rearing - "indulging their every whim is not only ill-advised but also not very smart."

There is also some specific advice about handling money - the creation of "incentive" trusts, for instance, which children must achieve certain goals before inheriting, the positives of prenuptial agreements, the necessity of having a job - but the focus of the book is on the spiritual side of life.

References to God, the Bible and Jesus permeate it, culminating in the next to last chapter, "Through the Eye of a Needle." Originally, she wanted that to be the title for the book, Willis said, but a journalist friend warned her that not enough people would understand the reference to Jesus' saying that "it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God."

Willis writes of being disheartened by that verse until she read Jesus' assurance that followed it: "but with God all things are possible." The understanding she came to was that "this last phrase is the key to Jesus' teaching . . . it's not the wealth itself that is the problem. It's the overbearing assumptions we make about our relevance and importance because of our wealth that is the danger."

The same can be true for those blessed with "great beauty, even great intelligence. An abundance of anything considered to be an asset can be a challenge." Willis' pastor at Lake Grove Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) in Lake Oswego, Ore., helped her work through that chapter and the spiritual issues she addresses.

Like many in her generation, Willis went through a period of spiritual exploration in the 1970s before settling back down into the Presbyterian Church in which she was reared.

"What I found was that the basic truths of the religions I studied, to me they seemed to be the same as Christianity. I found that very affirming, really," she said. But in her 30s, she "made my way back to Christianity and became a committed Christian at that point." She advises her clients to examine themselves closely to determine what they worship. "I often ask in workshops, what do you think about most when you are making a big decision? That will reveal your god."

"If we are spending eight hours a day managing our money, our investments, that is where our heart is. It's a challenge to keep your heart with God," she said.

Cody Lowe can be reached at 981-3425 or cody.lowe@roanoke.com.