July 19 – “Watch out, Gene Kelley”

We started out our walk under threatening skies.  And before we finished but one mile, the rains came.  Light at first, the mere sprinkle soon became a downpour.  And through it all we trudged together.  No, not trudged.  Nor plodded.  No.  We danced.   In the rain.  Hilariously.  Joyfully.  Well, OK.  So “we” didn’t dance.  I did.  And it was joyous.  Well, OK.  Perhaps a better word would be “comical.”  But Chris did smile.  And we made it home without being struck by lightning, so all in all, it was a good walk.

Later in the day we ventured out once again.  This time, however, we took the truck.  First stop?  Surprise of all surprises.  WalMart.  Seems we had once again found ourselves fruitless.  No, really.  Literally without fruit.  We ran out of bananas and pineapple, and we were getting dangerously low on grapes and oranges.  We managed to restock all but the oranges.  They only had three bags left, and every one of them had a rotten one inside.  So Chris sacrificed and bought a watermelon instead.  Some sacrifice.  That’s her all-time favorite.

From there we went on a trash run.  Not to pick up trash.  Not even to take trash to be dumped.  We went to Home Depot to buy two more of those big ol’ 96 gallon trash cans with a lid on them for the church.  The groups staying in the retreat center have been generating a lot of garbage, and one of the neighbors has complained again.  Our plan is a two parter.  First, we will try to use only the cans with lids.  Four of them.  Second, we will move the actual pickup site away from that particular neighbor’s view, down the street a ways where the only thing across the street is a vacant lot.  We looked into getting a dumpster, but it was well out of our price range right now.  Hopefully this will solve the problem.  Gotta be good neighbors. 

James 5:12 says, “Above all, my brothers, do not swear — not by heaven or by earth or by anything else. Let your ‘Yes’ be yes, and your ‘No,’ no, or you will be condemned.”

Father, be with our neighbor at church.  Please give him patience as we try to deal with the trash issue.  Amen.