Lessons Learned…
About Neighbors
Life
is fast. Activities are many. Involvements and commitments fill our calendars.
Squeeze it in, pack it in, as much and as quickly as humanly possible. Often
times far from families. Faster. Faster. Faster. Until in exhaustion from all
of our running we realize that we have forgotten to breathe. Breathe. What are
we running for? What are we running from? Can we really ever keep up with or
catch up to the Jonses? What happened to chatting over the garden fence with
the neighbors? Life happens in a neighborhood.
From walks around the block with strollers to training-wheel bicycles
wobbily being ridden on the sidewalks, from trick or treating to selling
wrapping for school, from borrowing a cup of sugar to sharing a bag full of
tomatoes, from watching the house next door until the family returns from
vacation to bringing over a meal when a tragedy has struck, from searching
together for a lost dog to working together to drag out a fallen branch, from borrowing
a cool sports car for prom to giving someone a ride to the hospital, life
happens in a neighborhood. We need each other. We need to be connected. We need
to belong. Children need this, we all need this. We can set a head-spinning
pace and race with all we are worth to keep up with ourselves, but at the end
of the day does the spoil outweigh the fatigue? What would it mean, what would
it look like to occasionally jump off the merry-go-round and instead linger
over the garden fence to catch up with the neighbors, to make a connection, to
engage friendship? The human heart was
made to be in relationship and yet we run disengaged keeping our empty
distance. Not so in our neighborhood. We made a different choice here. Our neighborhood, although a hodge-podge
collection of individuals in every way, is modest and connected, generous and
attentive, and together we laugh and share and grow up. Together we are
stronger. Together we are better. Together we are blessed. Perhaps it is time
to stop running and check on the neighbors.
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