I remember my father having a monthly liturgy for paying the bills. On the first day of each month he would sit at his roll top desk and gather the bills. He would sort them in order of importance and place them in a pile with the most important on top.  At the top was always the mortgage, then the car loan and utilities, insurance, groceries, investments, the newspaper subscriptions and kid stuff, and so on.  He would get out his neatly balanced checkbook and begin paying the bills so that the most important were paid first. Being a curious child who liked to help, it wasn’t long before I picked up on the fact that first check my father actually wrote each month wasn’t the mortgage, but my parents monthly pledge to our church. 

Read More