Yesterday I was amazed when I read in my Sunday Denver Post articles on the charitable giving – or lack their of for the most part – for the 4  running for Senate for Colorado.  One article compared the democratic hopefuls – Sen. Michael Bennett and his challenger Andrew Romanoff.  The other compared the Republicans – Jane Norton and Ken Buck.

This is not meant to be a political statement but I do think its interesting that only Jane Norton gave anything significant.  Norton averaged giving 10-21% of the income while Buck gave 0.01 to 4 %.  And Buck would come across as a philanthropist compared to the other side of the aisle.  Romanoff rarely reported any charitable giving on his income tax returns in past years and paltry claims when he did.   He says he gave to charity but it didn’t exceed the standard deductions.  (That would make sense if he was single but just means to me that he didn’t give that much.) But Sen. Bennett takes the cake.  One year he made $6.5 million in income and gave $624 in contributions.  The next year, his ‘generosity’ increased as he reported $5.3 million adjusted income and $1,910 in charitable giving.  So he barely based  met the national average of $1620.  But if you made 5.3 million, it seems like you are making way more than the average person.   His average would be like me givign $3 in one year and $15 in the next.  That’s absolutely embarrassing!

What dies this mean?  Of course, we are not required to give.  We live in a free country.  And these stats would have remained private except its news as they are running for public office.  (Or if like those running for Governor of Colorado, they had refused to share them.)

But to me its sad.  What kind of person repeatedly turns their back on those in need or non-profits that help those in need?   Where are we as a nation if our  leaders don’t have generous hearts?  Do we want to be a nation of people who take or give?  A generous heart is a heart of compassion.  A heart that looks on others and not yourself.  It evokes not just petty alms but giving sacrificially.  It’s a heart that bleeds rather than hands that are tight-fisted.  We need leaders to set the example.

I am reminded of Jeremiah 22 where God gives a judgment against evil leaders. One king was greedy building spacious palaces with large windows and cedar paneling.  He was exploiting workers in the process of his home improvement too.  God said:  ”Does it make you a king to have more and more cedar?  Did not your father (King Josiah) have food and drink? He did what was right and just, so all went well with him.  He defended the cause of the poor and needy, and so all went well. Is that not what it means to know me?”

Its not what you have… money, the ability to make money, position, palaces, title, power – that makes you a real leader.  It’s what you do for those in need.  Its by reaching down to help lift others help that you become a real leader.  Notice that when Josiah did those things, he had all he needed (food and drink) and all went well.  And to top it off, God says that this what it means to know me.  And that’s life and the ultimate even more than having enough and things going well.

I choose St. Lucia as a location for the midyear for the 8 STINTers because website said it was 4 hours from Jo’burg and not to mention it had hippos, crocs and the Indian Ocean.

People told us the drive was 8 hours and I thought they just don’t know.  Well 8 hours was too conservative.  The road that looked like an interstate on the map was mostly a two-lane road and often a one-lane due to construction.  Once we sat for 30 minutes waiting for our turn to drive through the construction area.  It took 10 hours.

But we made it.  And had an excellent dinner where we are stating.  The accomdations are excellent.

It’s warm here.  This am we went on a boat ride in the estuary and saw crocs and hippos.  This afternoon I dipped my toes in the Indian Ocean.  And for several hours Robin and I had a great time interacting with the STINTers.  We asked to share their highlight and then what has been the greatest challenge.  It opened up a lot of things.   Pray that we will be able to address some solutions that mostly deal with their ministry scenerios.

Tonight we have a braai (BBQ) and tommorrow a devotion followed by a game drive.  Worth the ten hours in a car with cranky kids.

Isn’t it obvious that God deliberately chose men and women that the culture overlooks and exploits and abuses, chose these ‘nobodies’ to expose the hollow pretensions of the ‘somebodies’?…  ~  I Corinthains 1:28

Dave Gibbons begins the Monkey and the Fish: Liquid Leadership for a Third-Culture Church with an eastern parable.  A well-meaning monkey sees a fish struggling in the water after a typhoon.  Having a kind heart, the monkey with considerable risk to himself reaches down precariously from a limb of a tree to save the fish snatching him up from the water.  The monkey lies the fish on dry land.  For a few minutes the fish showed excitement but soon it settled into a peaceful sleep.

In Lincoln’s honor, here are a few quotes:

“Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves; and, under a just God, can not long retain it.” 

“I leave you, hoping that the lamp of liberty will burn in your bosoms until there shall no longer be a doubt that all men are created free and equal.” 

“Common looking people are the best in the world: that is the reason the Lord makes so many of them.” 

“I have been driven many times upon my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go. My own wisdom and that of all about me seemed insufficient for that day.”

“…I know that the Lord is always on the side of the right. But it is my constant anxiety and prayer that I and this nation should be on the Lord’s side.” 

“In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free – honorable alike in what we give, and what we preserve. We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth. Other means may succeed; this could not fail. The way is plain, peaceful, generous, just – a way which, if followed, the world will forever applaud, and God must forever bless.” 

“With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphan – to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.” 

“I am rather inclined to silence, and whether that be wise or not, it is at least more unusual nowadays to find a man who can hold his tongue than to find one who cannot.” 

“…that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom; and that this government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” 

“In regard to this Great Book, I have but to say, it is the best gift God has given to man. All the good the Savior gave to the world was communicated through this book.” 

“Discourage litigation. Persuade your neighbors to compromise whenever you can. Point out to them how the nominal winner is often a real loser – in fees, expenses, and waste of time. As a peacemaker the lawyer has a superior opportunity of being a good man. There will still be business enough.” 

“The demon of intemperance ever seems to have delighted in sucking the blood of genius and of generosity.” 

“I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity and Union.” 

“Nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and moral questions of our time: the need for man to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to oppression and violence. Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.” – MLK

“The curse of poverty has no justification in our age. It is socially as cruel and blind as the practice of cannibalism at the dawn of civilization, when men ate each other because they had not yet learned to take food from the soil or to consume the abundant animal life around them. The time has come for us to civilize ourselves by the total, direct and immediate abolition of poverty.” – MLK

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction….The chain reaction of evil–hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars–must be broken, or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation.” – MLK

“Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. Hate destroys a man’s sense of values and his objectivity. It causes him to describe the beautiful as ugly and the ugly as beautiful, and to confuse the true with the false and the false with the true.” – MLK

“I am aware that there are many who wince at a distinction between property and persons–who hold both sacrosanct. My views are not so rigid. A life is sacred. Property is intended to serve life, and no matter how much we surround it with rights and respect, it has no personal being. It is part of the earth man walks on; it is not man.” – MLK

“Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice. Justice at its best is love correcting everything that stands against love.” – MLK

“If the church does not recapture its prophetic zeal, it will become an irrelevant social club without moral or spiritual authority.” – MLK

“If a man hasn’t discovered something that he will die for, he isn’t fit to live.” – MLK

Got this from a buddy who was my discipler in college and he got it from someone else.

I resolve to…

What in the world was a Catholic doing speaking to Campus Crusade group at the Navigators headquarters? Quoting scripture?  Sharing transferable concepts? Conducting Vespers? ….  Maybe a little of all three.