I wonder how many of us really know our neighbors. Certainly not me. When we lived in LA, I didn’t know any one else except for those who rented units in our triplex. Even at that, I had only become friendly with just one family. The last I had seen of them was back in the early 1980s. Other than that family, I spoke with others only casually in passing or when an issue arose.
My neighbors to either side? On one side was an apartment building and the renters came and went. On the other side was an elderly lady who only rarely spoke to us and when she did, it was to complain about this or that, including the feral cats that lived close by. She was convinced that as we had cats, it was somehow our fault when the feral ones arrived.
That was pretty much it. Mind you, I lived in this building for close to thirty years. That’s a long time to go without being neighborly.
When we moved to Texas, I figured that neighbors would be friendly. In Austin, that turned out to not be the case. Of course, we gained a bad reputation by doing fairly extensive renovations (repairs really) to the house that we had just purchased. That, plus the fact that we were from California, put us on the outside looking in.
I pretty much sealed our doom as neighbors when I took exception to the neighborhood children using the front of our yard to use skateboards to leap multiple yards out into the street. Our front yard was raised three and a half feet above the sidewalk with a stone retaining wall. All I could think of was that the children would get hurt. They would jump high and then far out into the street and into the path of cars.
So I asked them to stop. When they didn’t, my husband asked. They still did not. So he took pictures of the children so we could find their parents and tell them what was happening.
As it happens, that did stop them. However, the next time I was out tending my yard, a neighbor pulled up and started berating me for invasion of privacy, stalking children and generally being means spirited as the woman who had owned our house previously had let the neighborhood children run wild on her property.
I then asked which of the children were hers. She told me none of them were. So, I asked, why am I wasting my time talking to you when I want to talk to the parents who were going to have to take care of their children when they got hurt? Then I walked away from her and her arguments.
The kids never came back to leap into the street from our lawn. But by the same token, apart from the neighbors to either side, we never got to know any of our other neighbors. I think we had the reputation of being the older folk who would yell at the kids to stay off of their lawn, which of course, had nothing to do with our concerns at all. We lived there for almost seven years.
Then we moved to our present home. We have been living here almost seven years as well. Our reputation is that we are quiet and that we give out full size candy bars on Halloween (that is, until this year when due to my illness, we could not open the door at all.) We have still only talked to a couple of neighbors.
In my heart of hearts, I think I wanted a neighborhood where people were welcoming and kind. Where people went out of their way to meet and talk to new people in the neighborhood.
My guess is that, with the exception of one neighbor, none of them even know that I have been ill. She only found out when she came to tell us that one of our neighbors on the other side had passed away. That was more than a year after my serious illness began.
I’ve checked with several members of our church and they don’t know their neighbors either. They live in very different neighborhoods than we do, so it seems like this might be something that is true in many places.
I guess, these days, it is more likely that individuals do not know their neighbors that well. If they do, it is a very limited number. It’s possible that in smaller towns this is not the case at all. After all, there are only limited grocery stores, churches and schools in a small town.
This has been on my mind recently, as our church has been talking for weeks about our need to love our neighbors, regardless of who they are. I don’t think our problem is with anything personal about our neighbors, it is merely that no one is interested in knowing their neighbors that well.
They want to hunker down and have quiet time at the end of the day. Things are so busy and hectic that many probably view their alone time at home as a respite in a crazy world that seems to be getting more crazy and hateful every day.
One of the things that our church is doing, which I really think is great, is that they are getting together on weekends and going to people’s homes and helping them with chores and repairs. The recipients are either physically or financially unable to do these on their own. For individuals to come and do this for them is not only neighborly but truly shows the love of God.
Unfortunately, due to my illness, I cannot currently be part of this effort. My husband and I have found various other ways to show our love to those who are in need. For us, that is the way we are being neighborly though it is not for people who live in our specific neighborhood.
I’m sure that the majority of those who read this will also have few relationships in their neighborhoods. Still, God has told us to love our neighbors and we need to find ways to show people who live around us that God loves them.
If you look at it in the right way, everyone in the world is your neighbor because, to some degree, everyone in the world lives around you.
Think about it, I’m sure that, if you ask, God will open your eyes to ways to show others that you care. That you care about them because God cares for you.
Mark 12:28-34
One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?”
“The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”
“Well said, teacher,” the man replied. “You are right in saying that God is one and there is no other but him. To love him with all your heart, with all your understanding and with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.”
When Jesus saw that he had answered wisely, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” And from then on no one dared ask him any more questions.