Thursday Night Terriyaki Burgers

It has become a Thursday night post-game tradition to have terriyaki burgers for dinner. There is a local company that makes them and they are just as moist and tender, and flavorful as can be. The convenience of firing up the grill in January adds to the sweetness of the deal. The only drawback to the burgers is that the terriyaki sauce drips excessively through the grill. I have watched grill masters maneuver around this, but I am just a basic griller so my grill smokes. So much so, that the smoke pours in through the adjacent kitchen window, the kitchen door and into the house where the over-achieving smoke alarm stands ready to tell the neighborhood that "It's Thursday night and the Collins family are having terriyaki burgers again!" Surely, you think I am exagerating. Can my whole neighborhood hear this wailing smoke alarm? In Hawaii, the cars we drive have thicker walls than our houses. (Who needs insulation in on a tropical island?) When my smoke alarm fires off, there are at least 8 houses that are hearing it. I know, because when they play their music, even I can hear it (and I'm half-deaf), and when their dogs bark, we all hear it. When their babies cry, we hear it (and there is nothing worse than hearing a baby cry unconsolably). And when our smoke alarm goes off, it doesn't want to stop. We, the renters, are not permitted to dismantle it. In Hawaii, little annoyances that are often minimized by distance and insulation are not minimized here. The only way my neighbors can keep peace is to choose it. They must choose to overlook my lack of grilling skills, overlook my loud music and my loud children just as I must choose to overlook their annoying dog, annoying parties, or annoying remote controlled cars. Overlooking doesn't mean that the offense isn't there; it just means that we're choosing, for the sake of peace, to look over it instead of into it. We choose to bear the burden ourselves instead of throwing it back at our neighbor. Tonight our terriyaki burgers were especially crunchy, the flames were especially high, and my neighbors were especially gracious, bringing even more meaning to the words: "Love thy neighbor."

A man's wisdom gives him patience; it is to his glory to overlook an offense.

Proverbs 19:11

Love...bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

1 Corinthians 13