Night Watch

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About this time of the evening, after supper, I’m usually making popcorn and getting ready to do some reading and/or writing or watch some T.V. but not tonight. I just made some tea, not the sleepy-time herb tea I usually make around this time of night, but the other kind, the kind that will probably keep me awake, and that’s okay, because tonight we’re on night watch.


A few weeks ago some of the folks in our little community got robbed. On more than one occasion things turned up missing. Not huge losses, things like a few three-wheel bikes, some GPS systems a tool box, stuff like that, things easy to grab and run and sell for some quick cash. Probably kids.

I like our little village. We have a little government, of the people, by the people and for the people. They work together to handle the funds we generate with our various events and meals and things. They coordinate events so that everything is done decently and in order. It reminds me of a little America.

Well, after hearing about our friends and neighbors being violated by the thief in the night we took action.

We could have thrown our hands in the air and cried, “Somebody’s gotta do something!”

We could have relied on our ‘government’ to hire a group to study the situation and hire themselves to oversee the oversight of the group studying the situation until they hired a company to hire a security patrol team in which we would no longer be assaulted by the dangerous perps.

Of course the small print we wouldn’t read would indicate that all of this would cost more than all of the items stolen combined and would delete all of the funds in our accounts until we were overdrawn. But no worries because we could borrow against our good name and sleep at night knowing we were safe and not being robbed blind; all the while ignoring the fact that we were being robbed, not blind, but with our eyes wide open.

We could have argued that it was their own fault because they didn’t do this or that or the other thing.

But we didn’t do any of that. Thank God.

We just took a piece of paper and a thumb tack and poked it in the wall in the mail room. Then we told everybody to sign their name by the time slot they wanted. It didn’t cost a nickel and we’ve got a slick security system.

We don’t have a fancy security patrol car with flashing bells and whistles, it’s a golf-cart—the gas kind so it kinda stinks. It makes a lot of noise, it ain’t real pretty, but she sure is fast. Our security team is made up of…US, not high paid uniform wearing hirelings. We’re made up of regular folks like you and me. We’ve got at least one retired police officer, more than a few retired military veterans and several prayer warriors.

Sometimes, I hear them put-put-puttin’ through the night when I’m lying in bed. When I do, I whisper a prayer for them, for our little village and for our intruders if they come. And then I pray for our town, for our state and for our country and her leaders. By then I’ve fallen back to sleep.

We have a cross section of humanity from all over America and Canada in our little village. It seems to me that what works here for us, ought to work out there, too.

There’s no sign that says this is a “Christian” park, but as we do what Christians do, it starts to feel like one. We pray before our meals and we sing and laugh and play with a joy that makes others want to be a part of the family.

When we see a need—we fill it. We have a care-basket in the clubhouse for our local homeless shelter. My feet hurt from shopping with my wife today, because she had a bunch of coupons to buy all kinds of things to put in that basket. It’s what she does.

We all have blood in this fight. This is our little village. It may not be fancy, it may not be big, but it’s ours and we’ll do our part to protect her. We’re not going to ask someone else to do it. We’ll sign our name and take our place and fill in the gap, even if it wasn’t our stuff that got stolen, it was our neighbors and as far as I see it, that’s the same thing.

Well, I’ve got to get ready to run around lookin’ for bad guys…kinda makes me hungry for a donut .

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I don’t know much about all this modern day techno-geeky stuff like—ipad, iphone, ipod, itunes, ibook, iCloud, iOS—but I do know how to use the best communication device known to man.

ipray4u

I’d love to pray for you—just leave me a message here or e-mail dougspurling@aol.com

Thanks for stopping by,

Doug

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