From Rocks to Bubbles

Julie and the girls and I spent a fun evening in the city tonight, and when we arrived home we noticed two boys playing right across the street from our house. They were throwing rocks at one another. As we got out of the car and entered the house, I mentioned to Julie that "somebody should tell them to stop throwing rocks." Julie stepped up to tell the boys that throwing rocks at one another probably wasn't the best thing to do, and they gave her some perplexed looks before continuing on with their rock-throwing fun.

The vacant lots across the street from us are troublesome. The organization or company who owns them does not take care of them, so as can be seen from the picture above, weeds become overgrown and tons of debris has been illegally dumped there over the past several months. The debris piles make for perfect fortresses for young rock throwers. Anyway, Julie decided to take matters into her own hands. She set our daughters up with street chalk to keep them occupied on our front steps, she grabbed a nerf football from our collection of sporting goods, and she walked across the street to give the boys something else to throw other than rocks. Incarnational living requires creativity, and Julie was on her game today. Before I knew it, the boys had totally forgotten about the rocks and they were completely engaged with my wife in a game of catch with the football.

I brought some bubbles and ice cream out to offer the boys to seal the deal, and before long the rock throwing was a distant memory. There was now an unofficial party at the McCabe house between the street chalk and bubbles and ice cream. What more could any kid want? At one point, Julie looked over at me and said, "I can see the wheels in your head turning. You're going to be blogging about this, aren't you?" I said, "Oh yeah!" How could I pass up on this opportunity? Reflective leadership is a big part of transformational leadership. I can't help myself. I think one key to our move to Homewood is that Julie is on board with it, and she brings her own unique skill set to the table on a daily basis. Also, both of us are open to whoever or whatever God may bring across our paths on a daily basis. Incarnational leadership requires giving up control and comfort, and embracing creativity and risk. Good thing Jesus modeled that for us pretty well.