07.04.08 Blowing Crap Up

It’s what the founding father’s would want.

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07.04.08 Behind The Mask

I liked not liking Darth Vader.  The way he wheezed.  The way he picked up subordinates by the throat with his mind powers.  The way he surrounded himself with British actors and dim lighting.

Then George Lucas had him take off his mask.  There, under the shroud of evil, was an old man, a father struggling to breathe, asking his son for forgiveness.

The first step to creating a holy war is to completely vilify the enemy, rid him of all humanity and rid yourself of all empathy.  Take away his back story, his perspective and rationale, his circumstance, his face if you can.  Mask him in every evil deed he’s done, every hateful word he’s spoken, every wrong perpetrated against you and don’t - don’t ever - take that mask off.  Wrap yourself in the warm black-and-white blankets of hatred and war and sleep well knowing you’re just and the other guy is everything but.

A couple weeks ago our neighbors sat drinking beers and smoking in their front yard with a couple friends of theirs.  A black sports car sat in their driveway, windows down, CD player pumping hip-hop and rap songs into the cul-de-sac.  Five feet away my kids sat in a blown-up swimming pool.  Penelope danced and Gresham drummed on the water’s surface.

Then the lyrics took a turn for the worse - a boasting rapper detailed what he could do to pleasure a woman all night long and what he could do to any man who crossed him.  What plot ties the two resumes together I’m not sure.

I was out of town.  Becky crossed the yard and asked our neighbors if they could change the song or turn it down a little since there were so many little ears listening. You must know something at this point: One of Becky’s faults is her inability to appear angry.  In an argument, when truly peeved, she’ll smile or laugh out of nervousness or cry out of frustration.  Becky was smiling when she made her request.  The woman next door was not.

The woman stood from her folding chair and began cursing at Becky, colorfully telling her she could take her kids and her pool somewhere else.  “OK,” Becky said, shocked and embarrassed, and she and the kids drained the pool, drug it to the back yard and filled it up with water again.  Becky entered her crying out of frustration phase, doing her best not to let the kids see a tear.

Since we moved in a couple years ago, our next door neighbors have never spoken more than a few words to us. We’ve baked them things, taken their kids on outings to a movie or the fair or to church.  I’ve played ball with their son more afternoons than I can count.  We bought them groceries once when they weren’t working and thought they could use some help. And these, Becky thought, were the first words they spoke to us?  She was hurt.  She felt unappreciated, like all the good she’d done went unnoticed.

Other neighbors eventually got involved that day.  The music was turned up.  There was more yelling.  The police were called.  Twice.  It was ugly. Becky abandoned the pool before all that, took the kids inside and stayed out of the fray.

That night she called me.  I was in a hotel room in Florida.  She told me what had been shouted at her and what she wished she’d said back. I told her I thought she should call them and say every word of it.  So she did.  “This is Becky from next door,” she said. “I’m sorry things turned out the way they did.  I’m not angry at you.  I want you to know I had nothing to do with the police getting involved.  We don’t handle things that way.  I’d rather talk through things with you so if you want to talk please call me or I’ll catch you in the front yard sometime this week maybe and we can talk then.”

The next day our neighbor sheepishly called Becky over to the fence and apologized.  She was sick and life was full of frustrations but she admitted that was no excuse for the way she behaved.  She apologized for the music being so loud and Becky said she didn’t mind the volume because we love music - it was the lyrics she didn’t want the kids to hear and repeat.  Our neighbor nodded in agreement as if hearing Becky for the first time, as if realizing for the first time that this was Becky’s real concern all along.  Then the conversation turned to kids and Summer schedules and they stood there in the side yard for over an hour, two adults talking about life, surrounded by children watching and learning how to make amends.

The next day the dad from next door offered to loan us his mower.  He apologized, not just for his wife’s bad behavior but for not talking to us sooner.  He thanked us for being good neighbors to them. And it’s only been a few days since but they’re acting like good neighbors to us now too. They keep their music down, offer to share their beer, wave at us with a sincere-looking smile.  We’re not best friends, but we’re not enemies.

I’ve learned a lot about my neighbors in the last week or so.  Yesterday, for instance, I found out my neighbor lost his job.  A house payment, two kids, a wife, a black sports car with quite the sound system and no job.  The mask is off.

07.03.08 Summer Lovin’

"Mommy, can you help me write something?” Gresham (age five) asked.

“What do you want to write?” Becky asked.

“How do you spell ‘Averi’?”

“A-V-E-R-I”

“Is?”

“I-S”

“Hot?”

“What?”

That enlightening conversation took place two days ago.  Last night Hot Averi, Redneck Neighbor’s seven year-old, spent the night along with her brother and oldest sister, Brian‘s four, and two kids from next door. Twelve kids total, up very late, high on S’mores, eventually drifting off in tents in my backyard to the sound of crickets and suburban traffic.

Two tents: One for boys and one for girls, separated by a grassy gulf and a chimnea, their entrances heavily guarded by lightly-sleeping parents.

07.02.08 Remember

I’m the speaker guy at church this Sunday.  And I’m scared.  I haven’t read the bible aiming to teach it to someone else in many months and it’s uncomfortable, nerve racking really.  It’s especially difficult because I don’t get to choose what I’m speaking about.  I’ve been asked to speak about Joshua - the guy that “fit” the battle of Jericho, remember?

So I’ve read his book a dozen times in a few translations looking for the theme. The story is mostly about Israel warring with other kingdoms in the land of Canaan. But there’s a thread running underneath the plot I think: remember.

Yes, the thing I’ve asked you to do next is impossible, God says, but remember what I did for you in Egypt.

Yes, you’re only a man, God says to Joshua, but remember what I did with Moses.

Yes, it’s just a few trinkets, God says to Aikan, but remember what I told you about taking these things from the kingdoms you defeat.

God is constantly reminding the People to be brave and courageous and obedient - in a word, to trust Him, to remember who He is and what He has already accomplished.  And their brain, like an Etch-a-Sketch, is constantly forgetting.

I found this instance this morning - I missed it the other eleven times my eyeballs passed over it:

Now the priests who carried the ark remained standing in the middle of the Jordan until everything the LORD had commanded Joshua was done by the people, just as Moses had directed Joshua. The people hurried over...(Joshua 4:10)

They hurried.  Why?  No one told them too. Were they excited to get their tents set up after crossing the Jordan?  Were they eager to go to war?  Were they hurrying to something or away from something?

No expert I can find answers the question.  So I’m doing something dangerous - I’m inferring.  I’m inferring from the track record of the People of God and from my own story that they were hurrying away from something - away from a wall of water that might come crashing down at any moment.  I’m inferring that maybe, just maybe, they’d forgotten about that day back at the Red Sea.  After all, none of them were there.  They only heard about the miracle from granddad in a bed time story.  Now granddad is dead, along with Moses, and the new guy Joshua is a little green, and the water is menacingly tall and so I think they hurried.  Because they forgot.

And once again God seems to be saying, Yes, I know this is more than a little weird, appears to be dangerous, but remember who I am and what I’ve done already and the promises I’ve made and kept. I won’t talk about this on Sunday - the whole reason I think they hurried.  It’s all inference, after all.  But I’m talking to myself about it today as I study.  As I fear.  Because my memory could use some work.

How’s yours?

07.01.08 Eh?

Happy Flag Canada Day to all my Canadian readers. All one of you.

Where are the rest of you reading from?