Beginning assumptions often determine results and outcomes.

This is especially true when it comes to how we decide to regard people.

When I begin with a worldview defined and informed by the categories and parameters of judgment, I quickly head in a direction that expects very little of others in their current state and assumes the necessity of my presence to affect the much needed change that I find so obvious.

Such a perspective creates the illusion that occupy a position of superiority, power and dominance. While shrouded in the false nobility of moral obligation, a worldview dominated by judgment cuts me off from authentic relationships. Such a stance weakens and, ultimately, destroys community.

Here's one for the books. If you live in the Stonebriar subdivision in Frisco, Texas, pay careful attention to the make and model when you buy a pickup.

Jim Greenwood is learning his lesson the hard way. You see, Jim bought himself a brand new Ford F-150 pickup, brought it home to Stonebriar and parked it in front of his house. I bet he was proud of that new truck. I sure would be. You know, new car proud, the emotion that makes your eager to show your neighbors?

Bad mistake. Jim started receiving notices from the Stonebriar Home Owners Association (HOA) notifying him that he was in violation of the rules of the community that prohibit parking pickup trucks in driveways out front of homes.

It's like eating fast food instead of a real meal. You provide an immediate rush of sugar, which creates a hypoglycemic condition. Your physical state actually gets worse after a quick fix of fast food. You could, for example, take people into the country for three months and provide them with jobs, housing and child care. But if they returned to the city after that time and there were no jobs, housing, or child care, they would be back in the same cycle.

Shanele Conyers, one of the few women in the program, said she was so used to sleeping on other people's couches that having her own bed feels strange. But the 25-year-old, a veteran who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, said she hopes to stay after being homeless for more than four years.

"I'm really loving it. This is my first apartment ever," she said. "Hopefully, this will be my last stop."

I've said it before. Let me say it again. If I were about 15-20 years younger, I would make a career change. (Is a career what I have?)

I would put together an investment fund group and I would start a new energy company. Our product? Solar panels.

My hiring practices would be a bit unorthodox. Most of my employees, the vast majority of my workforce, would be drawn from the inner city unemployed and underemployed. Many of my team would be ex-incarcerated and looking for a new start and a new life. I think our company could answer that call.

Did anyone read The New York Times report last week on the fact that 2 of 3 corporations doing business in the U. S. don't pay income taxes?

Must be nice, huh? Worth reading. Lot's to consider, I'd say.

Sunday reflections for me always include time for remembering the men and women who have died during the current war.

Because this war has been conducted without the broad reaching national involvement that a military draft would insure, it seems to me that we go about our business without much thought about what's going on in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Current national opinion polls indicate that the number one issue of concern for Americans is the economy. Does that strike you as odd?

For a moment, forget the poorest of the poor.

Well, don't forget these folks, just shift your focus of concern for a moment from the human side of the challenge to the financial realities, to the costs of homelessness to any community.

As we continue working on providing additional housing units for the homeless, we realize just how essential it is to make the business case for eliminating homelessness from our community.

Homeless people cost us all a lot. And, many of these costs are unnecessary.

I'll just call him "Mr. B." He's been living in an apartment out in North Dallas that we've been able to provide him, thanks to a funding stream from the U. S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).

Like all of our tenants in "Destination Home," Mr. B is disabled. He endures many physical maladies with great grace and amazing courage.

He is seldom idle.

People often ask me, "How did you know what to do as Central Dallas Ministries developed?" Or, "How did you decide what to do to realize the growth that CDM has experienced over the past 15 years?"

Good questions, I suppose.