This is a post in four parts. The initial part poured out of me, the second shocked me, Nehemiah walked into the third, and the fourth hasn’t fully played itself out yet.
Part I
Only in the rarest of situations do we get to pick our neighbors. So the adage “you get what you get so don’t throw a fit” seems like it should apply here. Yet that’s rarely the case. Right now my own neighborhood is throwing fistfuls of fits.
“I want the right to ___fill in the blank here___ on my property. My property value is diminished if you won’t let me.” Depending on the nature of your own community, these blanks get filled with any number of things: park an RV, build a barn, raise a pig.
Then immediately thrown back is “If my neighbor has the right to ___fill in the blank here with the same thing the other neighbor just demanded___, then the value of my property will be diminished.”
Back and forth it goes. At meetings. In community-wide emails. Signatures on petitions.
Everyone says their reason for taking action is to restore peace, love, and moonbeams.
When neighbors aren’t blaming each other, the volunteers on the neighborhood Board are a easy target. “They’ve done too much.” “No, they’ve done too little.” As a member of the Board, the hostility has been nothing short of disorienting.
I want to take my exhaustion and grief and join up with the pack of the coyotes in the area. Oh that they would they let me sit with them and howl at the moon until all the stress in my body had dissipated.
Several nights ago, after nature’s baying was stilled, I felt a gentle nudge from God to consider our neighborhood’s turmoil from another perspective: His. What exactly is being diminished in all our flare-ups?
Kindness.
Thoughtfulness.
Neighborliness.
When “I have a right to…” roars so loud I cannot possibly hear my neighbor’s point of view, there are real consequences.
Nobody gives anyone the benefit of the doubt.
Neighborhood peace runs a deficit.
Hurt people hurt people, ad nauseam.
Some neighbors, I imagine, will claim to be winners when their initiative is approved. But the real truth is we’re all losing when we quarrel.
Sure, we may get to put X or Y or Z in our yards, but we’ve lost the opportunity to invite neighbors into our yards. Do you want to sit around a fire pit roasting marshmallows with someone who’s a bully? Me neither.
When we need an extra cup of sour cream at the last minute, the number of neighbors we now feel comfortable asking is fewer.
When we have a question about how to troubleshoot a finicky well pump, that knowledge is now trapped behind closed doors.
Yet, even more than these courtesies, I wonder if we’re depriving ourselves of the potential for friendships.
Part II
When my pencil scrawled that last sentence on my writing pad, my startled hand let go. I crossed my arms and leaned back. I am not someone who thinks “More people! Yay!” We moved here for the quiet mornings, quiet evenings, and every quiet moment in between.
I left the paper on my dining room table and walked away.
Another quiet night, another cup of tea, and I began to wonder: is there something inside me that wants more than a cup of sour cream within walking distance?
Like sweet laughter.
An enthusiastically friendly wave.
Freshly-cut flowers left on the front porch.
When we try to gloss up debt ownership by calling it home ownership instead, are we allowing financial debt to eclipse our soul debt.
Do we know, scratch that, do I know how many graduation parties are happening in our neighborhood this spring? Or the number of couples celebrating wedding anniversaries that end with a zero—10th, 20th, 50th? Or how many have parents who either died or are dying this year?
The next door neighbor isn’t your family (for better or worse) and they don’t have to your best friend either, but I imagine there is still an opportunity for small connections. Joy shared is doubled and sorrow shared is halved can be true even across property lines, yes?
I know the world is fallen. I know heavenly relationships aren’t possible…yet. A girl can still dream, right? Dream for more stuff “on earth like it is in heaven.”
Part III
“Where do I possibly go from here?” I asked God.
“Ask Nehemiah,” answered the Spirit. Ask the man of old what he did when he became aware that the place he called home was in great trouble and disgrace. Fires had been lit and allowed to burn. Nobody felt safe anymore. The people once living in a beautiful place were no longer living beautifully.
The weight of this revelation collapsed Nehemiah. He sat down, wept, mourned, fasted. Maybe he even howled at the moon. And he prayed. A prayer of confession, remembrance, and request. But he began with hope, something I’m not feeling a lot of right now. Then again Nehemiah wasn’t skipping around with sun-shiny hope either. It was a choice to anchor himself in the only hopeful place he knew.
"O YHWH, God of heaven, the great and awesome God..." (Neh 1:5)
When in doubt, mimic the prayers of the Bible. So I did:
O God of heaven, the great and awesome God who tells us to love our neighbors, it is only in You that we can have any hope of our relationships being made right. Only You can rescue us from our “propensity for smallness and selfishness, foolishness or
shortsightedness.”1
"...let your ear be attentive and your eyes open..." said Nehemiah to God.
May your ears hear past our bickering and your eyes see past our mud slinging to the root of our troubles.
"I confess the sins we...have committed against you."
O Lord, I confess that we have forgotten how your grace is abundantly sufficient for all our needs and your perfect love is meant to cast out all fear.
It is an unmerited gift of your grace that we live where we do. Every. Single. Acre. You own. The dollar value we assign to a parcel of dirt is, from your viewpoint, no more meaningful than dust. Which is what we are too. Other people lived here before us and other souls will live out their lives here after us.
I confess that we have misidentified the enemy. It is not our neighbor. Those with flesh and blood who grow butterfly bushes taller and wider than my own, teach their children how to shoot a basketball late in the night, or build an outbuilding we simply do not like are not my enemy. These are the neighbors You tell me to love. Your handmade creation to whom I have the freedom and joy of showing kindness, compassion, and hospitality.
The enemy is the Deceiver who has convinced us that our here-today-gone-tomorrow property is more valuable than the well being of our souls. We accuse and defend much more than we listen. We allow every comment to be seen as evidence that “they” are out to get “us.” We have been deceived by wealth, power, and all the falsehoods of scarcity.
"Remember, I pray..."
Pass us not, O gentle Savior,
Hear my humble cry;
While on other communities Thou art calling,
Do not pass ours by.2
We can never find the moonbeams of peace and love unless you stir our hearts to reconciliation.
"O Lord, be attentive to this prayer...give..."
O Prince of Peace, be attentive to this prayer and give us hope. Calm our troubled minds. Be merciful to both the meek and the bullies. Send your peace that surpasses understanding into all fifty-nine homes. Meet the inmost needs of my neighbors. Help us all to forgive.
Part IV
The Jewish rabbi I listen to quite frequently says that God is always looking for partners. In two weeks, when we’re off the road and back in our neighborhood, that is what I want to be. A partner with God, if He’ll have me, for kindness, gentleness, and goodness. For the good of my neighbor. For the good of my soul. For the glory of His kingdom.
Lord, come quickly. Only fourteen days until we go sprinkle good things all around.
Lord, Come Quickly 