H e b r e w T r e e

There is very little I remember about the playground at Kelly School. I remember the blue gate that separated the elementary school from the junior high school. I remember the place inside the hall where I put my lunch box and jacket before I attempted to do the monkey bars with my eyes closed, and I remember the awful sound the bell made for recess to end. What I remember most about the playground at Kelly School was where I hid from Zach Perrucci’s Grandmother every morning when she dropped him off.
Zach Perrucci was the most annoying, disgusting, insensitive boy I had ever met at age five. He would chase me around the sandbox and although he told Mrs. Sandy he did not mean to accidentally spill his apple juice all over my new flower dress at snack time, I know he did. The only thing that was worse than Zach Perrucci was Zach Perrucci’s Grandmother. A tall, slim lady with long, wrinkly, skeleton hands that always found their way to my cheeks to give them a good pinch. Every morning when she dropped Zach Perrucci off at Kelly Elementary she would find me and say, “And how is my little granddaughter-in-law dooooing!” with her teeth clenched and the longer she drug out the word “doing” the harder she pinched my cheeks.
That woman scared me more than anything else. She would always tell my mom that Zach liked me and I was playing hard to get—I was having him chase me and we were going to get married. My mom would always laugh and then tell my dad she was crazy. Nevertheless, I decided that I hated Zach Perrucci and there was nothing that could have changed my mind up about that the day he pushed me down in the sandbox and scrapped my knee.
I remember the event like it was yesterday. I had just got done with the monkey bars when I felt an impulse to put my jacket on. I dropped down from the bars and let the tingling feeling you get in your legs when you dropped down from the monkey bars settle before I started my way to the hall where I had left my jacket before recess. I started to venture through the sandbox and made it past the triplets who always play ring around the roses, and through the gymnastic bars where competitions were held to see who could do more flips in a row. The only thing I had to dodge before I was safe on concrete and feet away from the hall where my jacket was calling my name was the game of tag.
I stood waiting for my opportunity to sprint across the game. I finally decided to take a chance and go for it. It felt like I had never ran as fast as I did in that moment. I look up, trying to judge the distance I had left before I reached solid concrete and was safe and sound through the game of tag—and then there he was. Clear as day. Zach Perrucci coming straight up ahead. I was running so fast, I couldn’t stop, and then BAM! Zach and I collide. I hit the solid concrete I had been trying so hard to get too in a much different way I imagined. I look up and see Zach Perrucci standing straight over me, hovering, pointing at my knee calling over ‘the guys’ to come and see. Tears already swelling in my eyes, I look down at my knee and all I can see is red. The tears begin to pour.
The next day I had planned on being as mean and rude as possible. I even practiced a few hair flips in the mirror and asked my brother for some choice of words. I get to school and Zach Perrucci is nowhere. I don’t even get my cheeks pinched from his crazy grandmother. I initially think that Zach Perrucci is planning something against my other knee and don’t let me guard down the entire way up until break. I walk into the sandbox and head straight to the monkey bars—I have to get rid of some of this anger. I’m just about to climb on when who other than Zach Perrucci is all of the sudden standing right in front of me. “That’s a pretty cool Barney band aide you got there on your knee.” I had never seen Zach so introverted before. “Thank you.” I said still with my intent to say something really mean, like poophead. “I brought you this. I’m sorry.” Zach shoves a little clear plastic half-circle container with a yellow plastic lid keeping whatever was inside secure, in my hands.
As he ran off to the other side of the sandbox, I look inside to find the most beautiful twenty-five cent ring with a neon pink gem fixed in the center of it. Standing in the middle of the sandbox, I look around to see where Zach had ran off too and I catch him at the corner of the sandbox playing tag. I put the plastic container in my pocket, the ring on my finger, and run over to the game with no thought of obeying the rules of the sandbox. I didn’t wait for the triplets and their game of ring around the roses, or the kids spinning around and around on the gymnast bars. I had my eye fixed on one thing: That game of tag. I make it to the other side of the sandbox in one piece and still only one knee scrapped. I run straight to Zach Perrucci, feeling the smile that covered my face I say, “Thank you…I love it…TAG! You’re it!” With a forceful poke I take off, and let him chase me around the sandbox.

[The Message]

Romans 12

Place Your Life Before God

1-2 So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.

3I'm speaking to you out of deep gratitude for all that God has given me, and especially as I have responsibilities in relation to you. Living then, as every one of you does, in pure grace, it's important that you not misinterpret yourselves as people who are bringing this goodness to God. No, God brings it all to you. The only accurate way to understand ourselves is by what God is and by what he does for us, not by what we are and what we do for him.

4-6In this way we are like the various parts of a human body. Each part gets its meaning from the body as a whole, not the other way around. The body we're talking about is Christ's body of chosen people. Each of us finds our meaning and function as a part of his body. But as a chopped-off finger or cut-off toe we wouldn't amount to much, would we? So since we find ourselves fashioned into all these excellently formed and marvelously functioning parts in Christ's body, let's just go ahead and be what we were made to be, without enviously or pridefully comparing ourselves with each other, or trying to be something we aren't.

6-8If you preach, just preach God's Message, nothing else; if you help, just help, don't take over; if you teach, stick to your teaching; if you give encouraging guidance, be careful that you don't get bossy; if you're put in charge, don't manipulate; if you're called to give aid to people in distress, keep your eyes open and be quick to respond; if you work with the disadvantaged, don't let yourself get irritated with them or depressed by them. Keep a smile on your face.

9-10Love from the center of who you are; don't fake it. Run for dear life from evil; hold on for dear life to good. Be good friends who love deeply; practice playing second fiddle.

11-13Don't burn out; keep yourselves fueled and aflame. Be alert servants of the Master, cheerfully expectant. Don't quit in hard times; pray all the harder. Help needy Christians; be inventive in hospitality.

14-16Bless your enemies; no cursing under your breath. Laugh with your happy friends when they're happy; share tears when they're down. Get along with each other; don't be stuck-up. Make friends with nobodies; don't be the great somebody.

17-19Don't hit back; discover beauty in everyone. If you've got it in you, get along with everybody. Don't insist on getting even; that's not for you to do. "I'll do the judging," says God. "I'll take care of it."

20-21Our Scriptures tell us that if you see your enemy hungry, go buy that person lunch, or if he's thirsty, get him a drink. Your generosity will surprise him with goodness. Don't let evil get the best of you; get the best of evil by doing good.