Drama Outside of Hobbit Cottage

"You will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on You because he trusts in You."   ... Isaiah 26:3


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So late Sunday afternoon I stepped outside to my prayer garden on the sunny side of the house, sat back in my wicker chair, squinted into the sky and imagined happy things.

Then suddenly some Hell's Angel poster boy (complete with leather vest and beard), began taunting our neighbor, 'George', from the street. "Come on out, George! Are ya afraid, Georgie? Come out of there, George!"

Oh dear. Tom and I think George is terrific, but obviously Biker Guy doesn't. Calmly, I gathered my books and went back into the house, closed and locked the door and complained to Tom about how I simply must sit outside earlier because late afternoons bring out the loonies. Then I stepped to the kitchen window while explaining what had happened and watched Biker Guy still taunting George until he walked around the corner and disappeared.

Soon after, George came from his house, got into his truck and drove around the same corner. Then, because I'm nosy-as-all-get-out, I climbed the stairs to my bedroom window, but I couldn't see anything except for a neighbor who must have called the police because a patrol car drove up, slowly, after all the action.

Sigh.

Late the following night, I got up to feed the cats at the usual ungodly hour of 1:00 am and noticed George's brother's truck beside his, as though he was spending the night (for protection?). He's never there that late. Then last night just as I fell asleep, suddenly a car horn blared long while it passed the side of George's house, then again as it passed the front (I saw when I stepped to the window).

Grow up, people. Just grow up.

Yet in the middle of all this drama I've often recalled a line from Simple Abundance which went something like this:

"When it's 2:30 in America, in England it's 1934."

Why that line? Because yesterday while my easy-listening songs wafted everywhere and I swept my kitchen floor and dusted the fireplace then watered my strawberry plants outside, fed the birds and transplanted forget-me-nots into the flowerbed beneath the crab apple tree, my brain thought this:

"When it's crazy 2015 in Debra's neighborhood, it's still 1934 at Hobbit Cottage."

And it is. Here, Life is serene and surrounded by green, growing things. Here, there are aprons, 1930's magazines, Fiestaware and love and the type of peace which God brings after you let Him haul away your own personal drama because you wanted something so much better, instead.

A peace which no one can steal unless you go all wimpy and let them just haul it away.

"Peace is not absence of conflict, it is the ability to handle conflict by peaceful means."

Ronald Reagan

I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”  ...   John 16:33

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