Trooping the color

...with Cub Den 88

The gift began with a text message from my west-side next door neighbor: “Hi Leigh. I’m a cub scout den leader and our boys are working to earn a badge focused on being a good citizen and good neighbor. I am trying to come up with an outdoor project that relates to both. Would you mind if I had them help with some Spring cleaning in your front yard? Just minor stuff likely, unless you have any requests in which case we would do whatever you would like. Would a Sunday afternoon be okay? Thanks.”

Would I mind? Would a Sunday afternoon be okay? Oh, my! No, I would not, and yes indeed!

Fifteen bags of black mulch, five fledgling hedge shrubs, three flats of gold, white and purple annuals, four trellises for climbing jasmine, six scouts and three dozen chocolate chip cookies later, Den 88 (and their kind leader-dads) had trooped bright Spring color all through my front flower beds, and rescued my yard from an extended stretch of neglect.

I should also mention that the day before the good neighbor/good citizen blitz, the leader-dads on either side of me had weeded the beds and done some much-needed pruning of what little scrappy vegetation remained. Clearly, “cub dads” understand the attention spans of eight-and-nine year old boys, and which chores have a fun factor attached. (Weeding decidedly does not.)

Honestly, I’d meant to tend to the bare beds and the heaps of un-mired jasmine on the side of the driveway after the fence supporting it was replaced months ago. I knew I should hire someone to do what I could not, but I hadn’t…not yet. A long season of illness and its accompanying fatigue had drained my good intentions dry. But if I had managed to plan and hire and pay for the help I needed, I would have missed the joy of Troop 88’s gift, and of a sunny afternoon filled with laughter and running and dirt-covered boys, their moms and dads, and Sully the 100-plus pound golden retriever who was quite the dirt spreader himself. And a giant lesson in receiving.

I don’t’ know why it’s so hard to say yes to such prodigal kindness, why I’m more comfortable on the giving end of goodness than receiving it, why my inability to “keep up with the Jones’s” on the landscaping front embarrasses me. But it is, I am, and it does.

You’d think I’d be a more graceful beggar since God has lavished so much grace on me. That I’d grow accustomed to the surprise of unmerited favor and less resistant to crazy, over-the-top kindness. But pride is a tough weed to kill. I know. And thanks to Cub Den 88 and their “trooping of the color,” I’m reminded every morning just how far I have to go.

Sow righteousness, reap love. It’s time to till the ready earth, it’s time to dig in with God, until he arrives with righteousness ripe for harvest.

Hosea 10:12, The Message