73/365 Parish Pay

We finally signed up for Parish Pay, the internet-based automated take-out-of-your-account tithing thingie. I think that's the official title, right?

I was on parish council when this first became an option, and our response then was wait and see. See if other parishes do it and then give it a try (or not). Well, two years later the verdict from parishes nearby, ones in similar financial situations, was give it a try. So we picked this one (there were a couple of internet-based automated take-out-of-your-account tithing thingies) because other parishes had used it with success. And we opened it up to the parish.

Several families started using it. And it was our intention to start using it as well. It was our intention in November. And then December. In January I sat down to do it but didn't have my checkbook in hand for the routing number. I put it off. In February it was out of sight, out of mind. But as we started doing our taxes and had our statement from the parish, it reminded me and I got it done in March, to start in April.

I looked at what we officially gave last year, compared to what I assumed we gave in my head. Maybe some weekends we forgot. Or what? I guess there it is in black and white.

With Parish Pay, we give whether we're there or not, in a once-a-month deposit. Based on that, we are actually going to give a little less per week than the check I usually write. But overall we will increase our giving by a nice percentage.

Now, maybe my goal is to get to church more often....since my money is already attending.

206/365 Panhandler

In the city, one encounters panhandlers. Some of course are scam artists, sure, but all of them? Probably not. Many are probably addicts of one kind or another, or maybe not. I don't know. I don't know what's in their hearts. Almost every time I get to highway 44, I have a decision to make, or at least a moment when it is obvious to me and my children that the man with the cardboard sign is asking me for something.

The other night we took a bike ride. We took the bikes loaded up on the car down to a trail in south city, an easy one we do when the kids are SO DONE WITH BIKING. We pulled up to the side of the road where we usually start from, and a man, I realize, is talking to Mike as I put Leo in the trailer. I catch parts of the conversation. He doesn't have a place to stay. Doesn't know what to do. Some agency helped him out earlier that day, got him his birth certificate to replace the one he'd had stolen at Larry Rice's (a notorious homeless shelter downtown). I asked him if he'd been down to St. Patrick's, which does all sorts of transitional work with homeless men, but frankly, that's not where my energies go so I don't know everything. He'd been, he replied. He wasn't mentally ill or addicted to anything so they couldn't help him.

So he got to his big build up and asked if we had anything on us.

We didn't. We were going biking. Mike didn't bring his wallet or keys. I hardly ever carry cash and I knew for certain I didn't have any. As I started to tell him I was sorry, he apologized for asking us. He walked away up the hill, quickly, and I went back to hitching up the trailer. It was a few minutes later I remembered the altoids tin I keep in the car for parking meters. It was just spare change, but I could part with it. I said this to Mike, and we both looked up the hill towards Gravois. But he was gone.

288/365 Checks

I stop by the rectory to pick up the deposit refund from the hall rental. "There's another thing for you here, too," Judy the secretary hands me the two envelopes. The first is self-explanatory.

The second, though, is odd. It's from a return address and name I don't recognize. It's written to our church, but at the bottom it has my name, like where I would put "attention" and then a department name.

I open it.

It's a $50 check made out to our parish and with the notation "Trivia" in the memo line. Ah. It's clear. I ask Judy what we should do--and she's going to have to get another check written. She takes that one and writes me the next day. She has a replacement for me.

It's raining money this week. It's a nice change.