Peace on Earth, Good Will toward Neighbors.
I wish Hallmark would print a Christmas card offering that sentiment. I'd like to send
it to two people in particular in California who need to be reminded what Good Will means.
These two guys are lawyers, and you can imagine what happens when lawyers live next
door to each other and they don't like each other. (For the record, I know that all of you
wonderful readers who are lawyers know what Good Will means.)
For two years, these California lawyers have been greeting each other with lawsuits,
countersuits, restraining orders and other legal salvos because of (get this!) the sound a
basketball makes when it bounces off macadem.
I wish I were making this up.
Lawyer A was trying to take an alleged nap while Lawyer B was playing alleged
basketball on the other side of the alleged fence with his son. So Lawyer A, desiring to
give his neighbor the opportunity to share Good Will, sprayed them with his garden hose.
Lawyer B responded in his own fashion -- he sued. So Lawyer A did what was logical. He
sued Lawyer B, his wife, his children, their psychologists and the psychologists'
lawyers, the cat who lived down the road and the manufacturer of the allegedly criminal
basketball hoop.
To accumulate evidence for the courtroom, Lawyer A videotaped his neighbors shooting
the basketball into the said allegedly guilty hoop. Lawyer B videotaped Lawyer A
videotaping Lawyer B. Perhaps there's material here for America's Funniest Home Videos.
No one came out the winner, except the basketball, which was retired to a quiet shelf
in the garage. And the cat, who got a good laugh watching the grown men videotaping each
other's camera lenses.
Both lawyers refused out-of-court attempts to settle because their opponents "made
unreasonable demands." They said this just to keep fighting, because everyone knows
it's not unreasonable for Lawyer A to sue for $2 million in assorted damages due to injury
"in his health, strength and activity."
What with the basketball ending up so expensive, I think it should be taken from the
garage shelf and given a place of honor in the Basketball Hall of Frame, with a little,
engraved plaque next to it stating, "It wasn't my fault."
There could be a happy ending to this story, but these lawyers would interpret it as
another "unreasonable demand": forgive. St. Paul said in Ephesians,
Chapter 6, that the real enemy is not our human neighbors, but evil spirits who, according
to the first letter of Peter, Chapter 5, seek to destroy us. Jesus was born into human
form so He could bring us power over the True Enemy. The only way we can win, He taught,
is to forgive those who trespass against us.
It's difficult. But it brings peace much faster than videotaped images of the
neighbor's camera lens.
In the meantime, be wary of basketball hoops. Yours might be one of those nasty ones
that swish the basketball through so fast, it bounces off the macadem in such a way as to
deliberately cause a garden hose to cool you off.
