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.

The United States today--and maybe the world--is overwhelmingly infatuated with symptoms and not the causes of them.

Yesterday, my doctor told me that the best selling cold & flu remedies, are no remedies at all. They temporarily mask or remove the resulting discomfort caused by all sorts of malladies in the body. And these products are the top sellers because we on the whole are simpletons. We are simpletons in that we only care about effects--not causes, we listen to advertising more than sermons, and that which is easier to see or easier to reach is the product we choose.

Often, the products that attack the mallady or actually deal long-term with the symptoms are produced by companies who value being referred to be doctors than fighting the war of public opinion. The money they spend is on research and product enhancement, rather than advertising, shelf placement, price points and branding.

This reality seen in the over-the-counter medicine industry is similar to what we see in many ethical situations as well. We have a terrible problem with children being born of parents who have no business being parents at that particular time and the cry you hear from so many is to give condoms out at schools. Let's instead get to the real reason this situation exists and that is that the moral fiber of the country is so thin right now. Teach our kids there are greater ideologies to live for. Teach them to love Jesus, and to follow His ways, and this problem will shrink. No need for condoms.

And by the way, if you're ever stuffed in the sinuses, take Mucinex--it's amazing.

The United Way is a fine organization staffed by fine people and supported by excellent people as well. The United Way funds many programs that would not normally get supported to the level they should be by the local community--both businesses and individuals. The United Way is a highly effective way to contribute to those programs and public benefit corporations (nonprofits) that are truly making a difference in your community because of the stringent criteria and reviews that programs have to go through in order to receive initial and subsequent funding from the United Way.

However, I would like to highlight the inefficiency that comes in donating to the United Way. When I give $100 to my local United Way--the United Way of Washington County--East, they tout that 86% or $86 goes to fund programs, "well below the 70% the Charities Review Council sets as a standard." That stat is misleading.

The United Way's "program" donation goes to another public benefit corporation that has overhead and fundraising costs. For instance, at The Salvation Army division where I work, 80% of each dollar goes to program expenses while fundraising and administration costs are covered by the remaining 20%.

So in the end, if I give my local United Way $100 and designate those funds to The Salvation Army, $14 goes to the Administrative and Fundraising costs of the United Way, and $17 goes to the Administrative and Fundraising costs of The Salvation Army. Only $69 goes to serve those in need!

That all said, my wife and I are United Way donors, and most likely always will be. United Way's are generally fantastic community supporters, and that's why we give.

Giving to the United Way however, is not an efficient way to support community programs--in fact, it's quite inefficient.

So is the new umm.

In high school and college, teachers and professors were constantly telling us students to avoid saying "umm" during speeches, discussions and in asking questions. It's that reaction we do naturally during uncomfortable times when our mouth is open and people are paying attention to us. I think the entire nation got good at steering clear of "umm," you really don't hear much of it anymore.

But you hear a lot of "so." That word added to the end of a seeminly fine sentence leaves us listeners hanging. The "so" ending is a clear indication to the listener that you're not confortable or not sold yourself on what you're saying. Let's get away from the "so" ending and get back to simply communicating well.

Next door neighbor was diagnosed with breast cancer last week. She's young, has young children at home, fairly healthy. It can strike anyone. Another neighbor mentioned that it seems breast cancer and all forms of cancer seem to be so much more common now. Scientifically I don't know if that's true, but it does seem that way. But we shouldn't be surprised.

The Bible is emphatic in Revelation and a bit in a couple of the Old Testament books that years building to the end times will be wrought with human strife, wars, rise in natural calamities and illness. One could argue we've seen many more natural disasters in the last decade. That could be a product of better news coverage, better communication abilities in outlying areas, or the truth. I read an article yesterday from a locally respected Christian apologist crediting the devil for natural disasters. The biblical evidence he gave was quite convincing including passages in Job where God gave Satan power over the weather to create the disasters that took Job's family, servants and cattle away.

Some argue the perceived global warming is evidence of movement to the end times. Technically, every second is a movement to the end times, but global warming could be part and parcel a signal that the end is coming.

Wars may be less violent and prevalent now than they used to be, but they certainly hold the potential now to be more catastrophic--especially in a short period of time--whereas wars in the past took many battles to arrive at astronomical counts of casualties.

I think the lesson this teaches us if any is not to forget the end times are coming and we are to be prepared. If Jesus comes back tonight, is he taking you or leaving you behind? And be praying that if the times are coming soon, that through your life either directly or indirectly, yo are bringing others to be saved by Him. May God come, and may he be injust enough to take me despite all my weaknesses.

Many would call me insensitive, but this flooding in southern Minnesota of the past week is a far greater disaster than the 35W bridge collapse. While fewer people died, thousands more livelihoods are being affected by this flooding. There are now thousands of displaced residents of flood stricken towns. These towns are going to lose businesses as a result. They are going to lose residents, and in some cases, will lose in part their identities. This flooding is far worse than the bridge collapse. I still do say however, that for those directly affected by the bridge collapse, it is tremendously tragic...Despite that, I don't fault TV for covering to a much further extent the bridge collapse over the flooding. The bridge collapse is something that doesn't happen--it was such an anomally. And humans love to find fault in other people and the bridge collapse is far greater a human error event than flooding is...Water is an incredible thing. It's one of the few elements in existence that most of life needs to stay alive. It has the greatest presence of any substance in the world. Yet it can reek the greatest havoc in the world from flooding, to encouraging mold growth in homes, to leaking through roofs, to being fairly absent in about 1/3 of the populated areas in the world.

Had our first real and not-good experience with peer influence this week. Our three year-old was crying after we put him to bed and when I went in to see what was the matter, he exclaimed that the bad guys were outside his room trying to shoot him. After a series of many questions I determined that one of the kids at daycare fed him the scenario. Unfortunately, Tanner looks up to this kid and likes this kid, and he's really not a good model for him to follow. Wow, didn't think I'd get to that stage of life for quite a while, but apparently it starts really early!

Our digital camera broke down this weekend, so we found ourselves "emergency" shopping for a new one. I bring this up for two reasons:
1) It's amazing how large a part our digital camera has played in our family's life. We bring it everywhere, take thousands of pictures, log and save many of the photos. You can see our life fairly completely by looking at our pictures over the past four years. It's really great.
2) We shopped at both Best Buy and National Camera Exchange. While our experience after the wait at Best Buy was good, it was nothing compared to National Camera. The place was "packed," but I still got helped right away. The person helping me knew so much about all different cameras, ended up showing me the same camera that the guy at Best Buy settled on as the best camera for us, but she gave us information as to why that particular camera is pushed at places like Best Buy and why it's no better than cameras $100 less than it. I was so impressed. Heather noticed that most everybody leaving that place had purchased something--as did we.

We went officially 24 hours without a digital camera--whew, that was a close one!


I know this isn't going to be popular, but the bridge collapse last week is going to go down as a not-so-big disaster by history standards. I say this because other than the 5 to 13 people who died, and the 70 or so that were injured, this disaster didn't affect the livelihood of those most intimately involved. That's not to minimize the bridge's affect on those people and their families, but for the community, it's not a catastrophic disaster. In fact, I would argue a large apartment fire holds more damaging affects to families' livelihoods than this bridge collapse did.

The unfortunate part of the collapse long term is going to be traffic. Not that we needed any help in that regard.

I think we're fooling ourselves if we think we can have the bridge built in less than two years. We still have to clean up the bridge, we still have to determine what went wrong, we still have to come up with a structural and aesthetic design, we still have to come up with a transit/road design, and we're going to have to make this a memorial bridge--all of which lead me to believe we'll be lucky if we get it built in 5 years! MnDot has a formidable task to undertake, as do our legislators and other federal leadership.

Even though I couldn't care less about Bonds and his chase of Aaron's HR record, I can think of one scenario that would be absolutely hilarious because I also think Bud Selig is an oof. It's been in the sports news now for months discussion around "Will Bud be there when Bonds breaks the record." It has finally come out that he plans--as he should--to be there. But wouldn't it be hilarious if Bonds, knowing Selig doesn't really want to be there, takes dozens of games to break the record! Bud would have to go to many games, logging many miles, staying a lot of nights in hotels. It'd be great!...Rather than use Google or Yahoo for your web searches, use GoodSearch.com. Each search contributes money to a charity you choose. I of course would encourage you choose The Salvation Army, but we've also selected Habitat for Humanity...

It used to be a long time ago that when something happened to someone in a community, the community rose up to help them out. I picture the Amish in building homes and industry buildings. Biblical times when families considered responsible for what today would be extended family. And during colonial times, entire communities came to celebrate weddings, harvest time, to mourn deaths and clamity, and to assist in the care of those who were ill. Today, we all should be that community when one in our midst is suffering. A young girl who spends her day with our kids at daycare is in desperate need of help. She is suffering from two someone related illnesses--a benign vascular tumor on her neck and an arterial malformation on her coratid artery that is still growing. Both of these unfortunate illnesses are causing serious health concerns including hindered bone development, compromising immune systerm and required steroid treatments. All of this is too much for a 15-month old to take, and for her family--mom, dad, and 4 year old sister. If the Lord puts it on your heart, can you help support this little girl and her family as they make several trips to Englewood, Colorado to meet with a highly specialized physician to remove from this little girl these infirmities.

Baseball used to be a game where the players were men who were honored and humbled to be playing a game while being adored by millions. Now it’s a game played by spoiled kids where everything is fed to them and taken care of, where money grows on trees and the only limitations are the foul lines during the game. Even Cal Ripken Jr.—arguably the most respectable man ever in baseball—demanded his own locker room at his home ball park and stayed in his own hotel room—sometimes even a different hotel—while on the road. What we have now is not an honorable game played by honorable men. It’s an often corrupt game played by spoiled boys…I am starting to have a greater appreciation for the Boy Scouts program. I’ve now had the opportunity to experience three Eagle Scout projects and they are unbelievably well done and attractive. If you have an opportunity, support a local Eagle Scout project…The most respectably occupations in my mind are these: teachers, social workers, and church staff. These are most often paid well below their worth. Those who take these occupations are doing something with their life outside of themselves.

July 23, 2007 Part 2

With the sad story of the first base coach killed by a line drive foul ball that hit him in the temple, how long will it take to hear of leagues who overreact by requiring base coaches of any age to wear a helmet?...Perhaps the best golf major I've seen in my lifetime, the drama of the British Open yesterday was awesome, especially when it looked like Sergio was going to run away with it after Saturday...

July 23, 2007

Whoever said "A bad day on the golf course is better than a good day at work" never shot 108...Anyone else love the two 90 degree days yesterday and today that the weather people predicted? All the technology in the world only gives weather people the ability to tell you better was is happening this very moment and what has happened. Technology has not in the end helped them predict what is going to happen...The Salvation Army's Most Amazing Race was on Saturday. A lot of fun. It was great to see the winners cross the finish "shield." Soon after they finished she jumped into her fiance's arms and screamed, "Now we can go on our honeymoon!" Apparently on their run to the finish line she was starting to slow down and he said, "No pressure, but if we win this we can go on our honeymoon." Great motivation. You can check out final results, pictures and hopefully soon--video at http://www.thesalarmy.org/... Speaking of The Salvation Army, I had the privilege of serving lunch at one of The Salvation Army's service centers on Friday. It was such a blessing. I got to realizing that these men and women who have humbled themselves to accept their falacies and want to deal with them are not all that different than you or I. For most of them, their sin was alcohol or drugs and it put them in their state. What sins are you and I committing right now that don't get us into worldly social situations like homelessness, but destroy other parts of our lives...I am amazed at the humility of the staff working every day to make sure that these people are fed a square and respectable meal. I am also amazed at the gratitude of those coming to eat. The only complaints, crabbiness and demands we got were from the rehabilitation staff!

Welcome!

Welcome to my very first blog. I've always wanted to write, and sometimes have some flare in my writing. So now I've got this blog to share with you some of those writings, hopefully I'll get better and you'll enjoy it . I'm sure I will.