We attend a beautiful Roman Catholic Church. It's 100 years old and is truly gorgeous. I love, love, love it!!! However, being that it is 100 years old, it obviously is in need of some repairs. Sunday after mass the priest made a plea to the congregation to raise funds for some of these repairs. He wants to raise 300k.

The breakdown for these funds is something like this:

100k - new roof
125k -restore 14 stained glass windows
75k - to set aside for various repairs that will be needed in the near future for the school

As I was sitting there listening to him speak, I was mentally thinking about how much we could agree to give. I was certain Phil would agree and want to give a sizable donation to the fund. I was wrong. He doesn't want to give anything. As a matter of fact, he doesn't think others should either! Allow me to explain.

He feels that while the church is beautiful, the money would be better spent, simplifying it. Instead of the fancy roof, we now have, that costs a LOT more than a more simple one would, we make it more simple. Instead of paying 125k to fix the stained glass windows, we have them put on display somewhere and we replace them with regular windows, etc.

When he first mentioned this, I was dismayed. I couldn't understand why on earth he would want to change our beautiful church and make it, well, so plain. Then he said something that made me think. He stated that we wanted the church to be beautiful to make US feel good. We don't need the church to have fancy stained glass windows but we like it. I guess he's right but I still wasn't convinced. It wasn't until he broke it down for me that I started to see his point.

Say we really scrimped all year so we could save 10k. That 10k then goes to repair about ONE stained glass window. Would we feel satisfied with that? With 10k we could build and completely furnish 5 houses in Jamaica. Which would be a better use of our money?

Dang! I hate to say it, but he's right. : /