IF YOU CAN'T BEAT 'EM, JOIN 'EM!

This was the theme of our fourth of July weekend. For weeks now the once quiet parking lot just behind our backyard has been alight with fireworks and "snap, crackle, popping" (not of the cereal kind). This year Utah made a significant decision-to legalize the big aereal fireworks for common purchase. And years of pent-up firework frusteration was let loose last night, and the night before that, and the night before that...

Now I want to confess something. As much as I hate the stuffy, tight-lipped, grouchy neighborhoods where rules RULE, and no one can step out of line - I also harbor a secret stuffy neighbor somewhere inside me. For days I have been dreading the 4th of July, the fireworks till all hours of the morning, the burnt remains lining our streets like dead rats, the green and red and yellow smoke blurring the air, people everywhere.

Sunday night my husband announced, "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em," and marched next door to invite our neighbors to do fireworks with us. We invited some friends over for a BBQ and the next day went out to buy a $100 bucks worth of fireworks (which for us is alot, we realize this might be a conservative figure for some).

In Luke 16:9 it says, "I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings." Now I don't pretend to know all of what this means. But I am beginning to get what it means to use your money to buy friends. Not buy friends in a bad way - but to say, buy a ton of fireworks cause you have neighbors who maybe cannot afford them this year but really like to blow things up- and let them join in the fun.

And the holiday that at first seemed like a curse - turned into a blessing. And it is a good thing too- cause here in Utah they have Pioneer day at the end of July - which I recently learned is celebrated with fireworks. So it appears the "snap,crackle, popping" isn't about to end soon.