For some reason, God in his infinite wisdom, has seen fit to bless me with not only good, but almost to the point being angelic neighbors where ever I have lived.  I have a list of short comings that would take several days to read.  I’ll freely admit it, I am no Bob Villa Jr.  In the Air Force, I could take apart my plane and put it back together with my guitar pick, but when it comes to house repairs or know-how, my picture is right next to house fixer-upper nincompoop in the dictionary.  This is supremely compensated for through Divine intervention, by placing me next to two people in our cul-de-sac that would make the guy from The Yankee Workshop look like a booger eating 4 year old with a playschool tool kit.  When we moved in, our neighbor was furiously scrubbing his boat.  I walked over and introduced myself, at which time he responded, “the best thing about owning a boat is selling it! and I have any tool you will ever need, help yourself any time.”  I didn’t find out his name for two days, but in that span of time I borrowed enough tools to make Sears Craftsman catalogue look feeble at best.  I later found out that his name is John, and when I say that John would do anything, anytime if I called is a major understatement.  When we lived in Virginia, he mowed my grass for four weeks and I didn’t even know him!  Steve moved into a very nice house across the cul-de-sac last summer and for a reason only known to Steve and concrete floor in his basement, he needed an air driven jack hammer and the summer heat must have caused him to stumble into my garage looking for that particular piece of equipment.  After a cold glass of ice tea, I calmed his fear and escorted him to John’s where he not only had  the particular item he was in search of, but a variety of said item.   To the east of John in the cul-de-sac lives Daryl.  If you picture Mighty Mouse on crack, that is Daryl.  The man scampers about his roof doing things that would make Spider-Man jealous.  The guy is constantly in motion.  I truly don’t think he really sleeps.  He is constantly upgrading or doing some work on his house.  Daryl will also do just about anything you need him to do.  Besides teaching school, he installs underground sprinkler systems.  One time he gave me some flags and said that if I had any problems with the sprinkler system, just put a flag by the problem sprinkler and he’ll take a look at it, don’t even need to call!  I have placed several of these out at times and as advertised, the problem is fixed.

It is that time of year again for the yearly cul-de-sac battle of the lights.  There really is no engagement on my part.  I tapped out the first year we moved in when just putting lights on our front porch I fell off the porch into a rather large hedge and almost needed to call 911 for professional extraction.  I think the nice young man at Lowe’s is still laughing hysterically after I asked him to point me in the general direction of a ladder that would support me three stories off the ground while I dangled off the side trying to snap lights on the gutter.  In his laughing fit he managed to blurt out something that sounded like, “fire truck ladder.”  Also, in my logical way of thinking, just like why make the bed if you are just going to sleep in it the next night, why risk having a halo bolted to my head by acrobatically placing lights on a house and falling on my noodle in the fall, only to risk my neck again in January taking them off.  I say leave them up year around and tweak then as necessary, my wife does not find this amusing.  I have over the last couple of years attempted resorting to monetary bribes of my neighbors to keep them from putting their lights up.  This year it seems to have worked.  This year the cul-de-sac was darker and I must admit, I missed the lights.  My neighbor jokingly said they feel bad that I felt bad by not having lights up so throttled it back this year.  This made me stop and realize that they are actually putting their faith in action.  I know both go to church, but how many of the people you know in church actually put their faith in action and serve?  I find it semi-amusing and sad at the same time that every year at this time the church (speaking as a whole body, not one individual church) has multiple programs to try and put, “Christ back in Christmas,” or some other catchy program, yet we have the Answer, and most of us have been in church long enough to not need another catchy program to get us to act with a servant heart.  We just need to quit organizing committee meetings and get out and do it.   I heard a sobering statistic that in a very small area (talking blocks, not miles) of my house, there are at least 17 churches with at least one more being built.  Seventeen!  I wonder if this is what God had in mind.  I wonder, with 17 churches in just our small vicinity, how there ever is a need that goes unmet.  Sadly, I think this is indicative of “the church” nationwide.  How many widows, orphans, and homeless does your church take personal responsibility for now?  We don’t need another program, we need to act on the information we already have in us and with the economy looking like it is going to get worse before it gets better, the Church may have lots of opportunity to meet needs in the upcoming year.  Look around your neighborhood.  Is there a need you can meet?  That is what putting Christ back in Christmas is about.  Maybe something to ponder for the next 364 shopping days until next Christmas.