Each
of us should please our neighbors for their good, to build them up – Romans 15:2
I
wrote a piece on the death of our cul-de-sac wiffle ball games a couple of
weeks ago, and it seemed to resonate with quite a few people. Now I want to
introduce you to the family that lives behind home plate.
In the first blog I wrote, I mentioned John, referring to him as the elder statesmen of our group. He’s patriarch of the house behind home plate, and the owner of the couch where I now watch games instead of play in them.
In the first blog I wrote, I mentioned John, referring to him as the elder statesmen of our group. He’s patriarch of the house behind home plate, and the owner of the couch where I now watch games instead of play in them.
He
and his wife, Jana, and their house, have become home base for me. It's no more
than 100 yards from my driveway, but it has been my favorite mini-vacation
escape spot for a decade or so.
Sometimes, it offered 30 minutes of peace that I wasn't experiencing that moment at my own home. Sometimes, it offered a reminder that the crazy at my house wasn't that different from the crazy at everyone else's place.
Truth is, sometimes being a spectator to the daily ups and downs, spats and tiffs, and screaming and eye rolling in someone else's real life offers something that you can't get in any other way. It says: "I'm OK; You're OK."
It says: "We're OK."
The flairups in John and Jana's home are short-lived, but often very funny, at least to me. They are usually high-decibeled and colorful in language. The participants are evenly matched in their wit and verbal sparring ability. The beauty of it is that neither one possess a glass jaw. Or a knockout punch. To have either one of those would mean someone would get hurt.
I'm sure, at some point over the years, someone has gotten hurt there. I've not seen it though. In fact, I don't know of any house where there is less deliberately hurting of others than in this house.
John never met a kid he didn't like, or a kid he didn't want to coach. He's the youngest 61-year-old man any of us know. It helps that he had kids relatively late in life. His youngest, Ben, is 14. I'll tell you about him in a future blog, but John's active involvement with Ben is one of the reasons he's young in spirit.
He's coached Ben in lacrosse for many years now. But every kid who has played wiffle ball, or basketball in his driveway, or run a pass route in the street, has gotten coached on how to do it a little better.
John will tell you that its not his most endearing quality -- the need to constantly be instructing kids on how to play smarter or more fundamentally sound. He might be right. Ben reminds him from time to time to turn off the coaching while the other kids politely listen and nod their head.
But there's usually little evidence that any of it has sunk in.
But if the worst thing you can say about a grown man is that he offers a tad bit more instruction than necessary, that's pretty doggone good. It means, if nothing else, he's in the kids' arena, a part of their lives, a reliable and steady presence, whose instruction -- though not always welcomed at the time -- never belittled, and never made a kid not want to come back.
Jana, the cul-de-sac mom, is a decade younger than John. She's equal parts June Cleaver and Roseanne. The woman lives for opening her home and serving others. Somehow, she turns a chicken fajita meal into a Mexican moment to die for. She's the mom who wants the kids in her house in her yard, rather than at someone else's house or yard. That's the Leave it to Beaver part.
The summer-gown-wearing, irreverent, loud, boisterous, spirited woman who never met a challenge she'd back down from -- that's the Roseanne part.
And who wouldn't love a woman who could pull off all that?
For sure, John and Jana are the glue in our dysfunctional little community. And having lived in a few other neighborhoods, I know this much: Not every community has a John and Jana. And those who don’t? Well, they might live in a great house with neighbors who smile and wave, mow their grass, and never play the stereo too loud.
Sometimes, it offered 30 minutes of peace that I wasn't experiencing that moment at my own home. Sometimes, it offered a reminder that the crazy at my house wasn't that different from the crazy at everyone else's place.
Truth is, sometimes being a spectator to the daily ups and downs, spats and tiffs, and screaming and eye rolling in someone else's real life offers something that you can't get in any other way. It says: "I'm OK; You're OK."
It says: "We're OK."
The flairups in John and Jana's home are short-lived, but often very funny, at least to me. They are usually high-decibeled and colorful in language. The participants are evenly matched in their wit and verbal sparring ability. The beauty of it is that neither one possess a glass jaw. Or a knockout punch. To have either one of those would mean someone would get hurt.
I'm sure, at some point over the years, someone has gotten hurt there. I've not seen it though. In fact, I don't know of any house where there is less deliberately hurting of others than in this house.
John never met a kid he didn't like, or a kid he didn't want to coach. He's the youngest 61-year-old man any of us know. It helps that he had kids relatively late in life. His youngest, Ben, is 14. I'll tell you about him in a future blog, but John's active involvement with Ben is one of the reasons he's young in spirit.
He's coached Ben in lacrosse for many years now. But every kid who has played wiffle ball, or basketball in his driveway, or run a pass route in the street, has gotten coached on how to do it a little better.
John will tell you that its not his most endearing quality -- the need to constantly be instructing kids on how to play smarter or more fundamentally sound. He might be right. Ben reminds him from time to time to turn off the coaching while the other kids politely listen and nod their head.
But there's usually little evidence that any of it has sunk in.
But if the worst thing you can say about a grown man is that he offers a tad bit more instruction than necessary, that's pretty doggone good. It means, if nothing else, he's in the kids' arena, a part of their lives, a reliable and steady presence, whose instruction -- though not always welcomed at the time -- never belittled, and never made a kid not want to come back.
Jana, the cul-de-sac mom, is a decade younger than John. She's equal parts June Cleaver and Roseanne. The woman lives for opening her home and serving others. Somehow, she turns a chicken fajita meal into a Mexican moment to die for. She's the mom who wants the kids in her house in her yard, rather than at someone else's house or yard. That's the Leave it to Beaver part.
The summer-gown-wearing, irreverent, loud, boisterous, spirited woman who never met a challenge she'd back down from -- that's the Roseanne part.
And who wouldn't love a woman who could pull off all that?
For sure, John and Jana are the glue in our dysfunctional little community. And having lived in a few other neighborhoods, I know this much: Not every community has a John and Jana. And those who don’t? Well, they might live in a great house with neighbors who smile and wave, mow their grass, and never play the stereo too loud.
But
they don’t have what we have.
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