Tonight Heather and I went to hear David Walsh from the National Institute on Media and the Family speak. The two premises from which he spent two hours planting seeds of wisdom and understanding in his audience were these:
1. The culture for raising children today is much more difficult now than it was 20 years and more ago. This is because the culture now is centered around more, fast, fun, and easy. Parents today have to work harder to do number 2...
2. The key to raising successful children is teaching them to say no to themselves. A child can begin to learn to say no themselves around the age of 2. They will grow in that ability until their adolescent years when brain development causes many great excuses for that ability to shrink before it grows again into the early 20's.
I would argue that ability to tell themself no has still not developed in many 30 year-olds I know.
More to come from Mr. Walsh...

Stewardship. The word is invoked much this time of year as churches develop their budgetary plan for the coming calendar year. Parishioners sometimes literally, but most often proverbially, roll their eyes as the word creeps into sermon titles, announcements and temple talks.

The word stewardship does not belong in any agnostic or athiestic setting. Stewardship is a focusing of how we use our resources in honoring and serving God. A woman I used to work with was a staunch agnostic. Her argument to the Christians she worked with was that she was as good a person as we and if there is a God and a heaven, that He would be just as likely and in come cases more likely to take her there as many of us Christians. She would argue that she is a good steward of her resources by giving 10% of her income to charity (mostly environmental, arts, and liberal social causes). She considers that as worthy if not more worthy than those Christians who struggle with don't quite tithe.

Her argument falls flat on many levels, but one such level is the common notion is that stewardship focuses on only the giving of 10% or the first fruits to others. Stewardship is not that bland, or that simple. Instead, stewardship is how we honor God by what we do with the resources He has provided us.

The giving of our first fruits or 10% of our income is done in appreciation for what God has given us, but more importantly, a recognition that all He gives us is his and not ours. The 10% is the least we can do--and I will argue here, just the start.

Stewardship does not stop at the 10%. Stewardship is instead how we use all of the resources God has provided us. What we do with the remaining 90% is as important to God as it is a barometer of our faith and trust in Him.

Two examples to help illustrate this point. In the news recently have been stories of ministry leaders engaged in fraud, affairs and deceit. In all of these cases it can be documented that the leader tithed to their congregation and gave offerings to their church above the tithe and gives to other nonprofits out of the remainder of their income. Judged solely on what they did with their 10% and even beyond, they satisfy the expectations God has for them. But it's what they did with the remainder of the money and the other resources God has provided them such as time, talents and belongings that send them fall short of the goal.

Going back to the woman in the earlier example. She has impeccable character, never having engaged in any immoral activity. She would argue that she "sins" less than most Christians she knows and lives a more wholesome life than they do, and she's probably right. She is a good person, but she is not a good steward because she isn't using what God has given her to worship Him and honor Him.

Stewardship is our using all of the talents, time, belongings and other resources to honor and serve the great God that gave them to us. We worship Jesus by what we do with the 100%, not just the 10%. In the end, churches preach stewardship the entire year round, despite the word only showing up this time of year.

Read an awesome article--an interview with former MN governor Arne Carlson titled "The Power of We." It can be found here: http://www.tcbmag.com/multimedia/multimedia/85705p1.aspx

Arne says what I have felt and not been able to voice forever, and that is proper and efficient government cannot happen with those on either extreme. But with leadership that touts the "we", and togetherness, great things can happen. Hence, what we built in this country in the first 200 years, and what we built in Minnesota up until the recent decade. I encourage you to read the article, it's great.

Did you know that it now costs the U.S. Treasury 2 cents to make one penny?

Read an op-ed today in last week's Twin Cities Business Journal from Randy Zarecki, Chief Fitness Officer for the Fitness Together chain of workout facilities. In the article he proposes administering a Fat Tax to pay for a form of national healthcare policy.

This Fat Tax would be placed on all foods--both restaurant and grocery store--that is high in the fats and sugars that make us obese and unhealthy leading to a whole host of illnesses, diseases and injuries. He equates this Fat Tax to the sin taxes on liquor and tobacco.

I am totally with him, despite the fact that it could cost me a pretty penny over my life time. I am always for people paying for those things that they use or that affect them. A gasoline tax to pay solely for roads and environmental clean up makes a lot of sense--but not on top of current taxes, in place of. A rent tax for families with children in public schools makes sense to help property owners pay for the school district operation in their community. And a sales tax on goods makes sense because it gives the normal person the option of not paying it, but not buying unnecessary goods.

While I stump for the Fat Tax, I also plead lawmakers for lower taxes as the common person and especially the upper class person pay far too much of their earnings on taxes. Encourage further support to nonprofits, eliminate a majority of entitlement programs to the extent they provide services, eliminate needless spending on things like making sure a professional athlete gets a visa or congressional hearings on drug use in Major League Baseball. Spend less money in government operations and campaigns and more money on those people and services that only a government can provide, and that are done efficiently. I plead for a redirect of taxes so that those who use the products of the services are paying for them. I am more than happy to pay for roads and national health insurance, if I didn't have to pay for a whole host of other services that are less reasonable for goverment to provide.

And with the Fat Tax, we could sit at the State Fair and people watch, saying things like, "that guy must pay an awful lot of tax at restuarants and the grocery store..."

Charley Walters has a tidbit in his column this weekend that U.S. Senator Norm Coleman worked "feverishly" to get the visa processed for 19 year-old Wild freshman James Shepard, so that Shepard could travel with the team on this road trip and play his first game of his NHL career.

That's great Norm. So many worthwhile, difference-making things you could have been doing last week, but you chose to work feverishly to help a professional sports franchise. While I value our local professional sports franchise, this effort of Coleman's is an example of the egregious misdirection of our elected officials when it comes to how they spend their time on our dollar.

I went to prison today. I volunteered as part of The Salvation Army's Prison Toy Lift program where we supply a toy at the inmate's choosing to send to their child for Christmas. An excellent ministry to those with a different definition of "need." I learned a lot today about the prison system, but mostly about prisoners. The chaplain we were with said the first thing he usually notices with first time prison volunteers like myself is when we realize that the inmates are real people. They aren't statistics, they aren't simply labels like murderer, rapist, or thief, and they aren't without feelings, purpose or value.

I will be the first to admit I cried twice today, both times when thinking about these men and their children. The men are in prison and have to miss (on their own volition) their kids first steps, potty training, first day of kindergarten, pre-teen years, getting their driver's license...and the list could go on. More sadly though, the kids have to grow up without their dad around. The kids don't get to play catch with their dad, go out for football passes, have dinner with them, go to a ballgame, learn to ride their bike with their dad, or skip stones in the lake.

The first inmate I worked with picked out a watch radio for his son and sat down to write a note to him. On the front of the notecard next to the TO: line he wrote his son's name. On the From: line he first wrote "Dad," which really tugged at my heart after having gone through my mind all that I listed above and more. The man paused then added "dy" to his name and I really had an overwhelming sense of compassion for the man and his situation, and his son. I hope and pray that his son knows his dad loves him, and that the man can behave while doing his time so that he can return home to his son at some point soon.

Hear the story of the hunter who shot his 14-year old hunting neighbor mistaking him for a deer? Just ridiculous. Why is it too much to expect hunters to see and clearly identify their game and target before shooting? The man claims he was shooting at what he had thought was a shoulder of a deer. Are you kidding me? You're risking so much at that point. He obviously didn't care what sex of deer or how big. But most importantly, he didn't respect the fact that other hunters could be in the woods with him. There is absolutely no excuse for shooting at a person while hunting. Confusion is not an acceptable excuse.