Good morning Wonderers:

God calls us to love one another as we love ourselves.

Memories are sometimes funny, distorted or maybe even correct in their entirety. I don’t know why they come up accept to teach us lessons, to ask for a clearer perception, to ask for forgiveness or acceptance or maybe just to share. It’s Monday and I know I haven’t written to this page in a while so if you don’t mind I am going to designate this memory to Mundy Madness in honor of two men that taught me a lesson on how God wants us to love one another.

Children can be so cruel. One day you are best friends the next day you are enemies and then back to being friends again. On this one day of cruelty, a group of frienemies taunted and teased the weakest of the group. A sickly child that could not defend themselves. What they did to this child is not important in this story. This story is about the children’s fathers.

What’s a father to do? This day the father went to the other children’s father and tried to start a conversation about what happened. Maybe his approach was wrong. Maybe his approach was right but at the wrong time. Either way he went to this man. A man that he had befriended. They worked on their cars together. They spoke to each other and shared an occasional beer and laughed in front of their front doors. Not best friends but neighbors with concerns for their children, their neighborhood, their community. But this day would be different than any other day. This day would present a different side of their relationship. The side of conflict.

When the father stepped up to the other father it has been a day of celebration for his family and everyone had dressed up and was ready to go out for the evening when the youngest child was assaulted. Now I will state the attackers thought it was in fun for them but it was hurtful for the victim. Anyway the father was probably outside of his normal demeanor because he was under the influence of intoxicating spirits and stepped to his friend. The other father who had been working on his car tried to hear him out and when he tried to keep distance between the two of them, the intoxicated father fell back with his greasy handprint on his jacket. All of this happened right in front of all their children and the bully children thought they had victory because their father was not the one who fell.

But this is what I want you the reader to know. It is not the altercation that I am writing about. I am writing about what happened next and the new respect I gained for both of these men.

The father that fell back was helped up from the other father. He did not try to further embarrass himself or the other father in front of their children. He tried to set an example to the young boys in the crowd for this is not what men do. He did not blame the other father by calling the police because literally you never have the right to put your hands on another person under any circumstance. These two men worked it out amongst themselves for themselves, their children and their community. I don’t know if the other children out there saw what I saw or if they ever knew their father apologized and offered to have the fallen father’s jacket cleaned. I do not know if they just thought their father knocked down the other father on purpose and that it was not accidental. So I can only tell you what I saw.

I saw the God in these men. I saw Kings trying to protect their families with godly principles by holding each other up and to a higher standard. If the other children did not know it, you should be so proud of your father, on whichever side you were standing. Both men stood up to the test of the emery and won that day.

Victory belongs to all of us because our father carried the character of the Father God. They were not perfect men but they were godly men and they taught us that day what God meant by loving your neighbor as you love yourself.

Thank you for perusing and may God guide your heart with love and light.