Love Love Love Your Neighbor

I love our neighborhood. Living here makes every day a real-life situation comedy.

Recently we looked out our back window to see our yard next to the creek in flames, with our next door neighbor standing by the fire, calmly raking away at it as his two tiny children ran toward the fire carrying ice cream buckets full of water. He had decided to do us the favor of burning off the dead brush in the spillway, and along the edge of the creek.

Never mind that it's against the law to burn within city limits. Never mind the half acre of dry grass and leaves leading from the fire to our wood-constructed home. Never mind the trees within just a few feet of the flames leaping higher than him.

Needless to say, in my own calm fashion I explained to him in no uncertain terms that he was never again to have open flame near our property.

Well, the neighbor on the other side of this would-be Darwin award recipient just happens to have earned the nickname "Mrs. Kravitz" in honor of the nosy neighbor lady from my favorite TV show of the 70's, Bewitched. She "heard" I'd had an issue with our rocket-scientist friend, and took it upon herself to take photos and report him to the city. She copied me in on her email and photos - here are a couple:

A few days after all the excitement, I was walking Zuki in the backyard and noticed one of my favorite trees had collapsed into the creek. It was such a huge tree it nearly formed a bridge to the other side of the creek.

Worried that the bucket-brigade children next door would see this as a great opportunity to win the Darwin award for themselves, I asked the engineer who lives across the street if he could recommend a quick and safe way to get the huge tree out of the creek before our resident pyromaniac held a bonfire.

That was yesterday afternoon. He came over first thing this morning with his truck and chainsaw, and after sharpening the chainsaw Julio borrowed from Dad, he worked with Julio to tie the tree to his truck and drag it up into the yard. They had pulled the entire trunk into the yard and had it cut into pieces before I could even get out there with my camera. But I did make it out in time to get shots of them pulling the top of the tree out of the creek.

The sermon last Sunday and the sermon at the service our praise band performed for this evening (another post yet to come) were both centered around the two greatest commandments: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, spirit and strength, and Love your neighbor as yourself. I'm happy to say I've accomplished that in spades - I am often frustrated with myself for doing stupid things, embarrassed by myself when I overreact, and pleased with myself when I am able to be of service to others. My 3 neighbors gave me a chance to love them each the way I love myself.

Thanks, neighbors!