Between Stranger and Neighbor
When I was 8 years old our family needed to buy a larger house because my baby brother was born and he’d need a bedroom. It was so exciting and the house and the yards seemed huge because there were no fences or yards and the curbs and gutters hadn’t even been poured yet. We were the last street in East Vallejo so after our back yards there was nothing but cow pastures. Those homes sold like hotcakes in 1952. Every family had kids. It was a dream come true.
Soon, everyone knew one another and all the dads started planning their yards. Each dad was an expert at something and so they all worked together every weekend and most nights to help each other design their yards. Together they worked to put in lawns, poured cement for patios, built patio covers and fences and planted the trees and bushes and flowers. While all that was going on the moms would be planning what they were going to feed everyone that day. They all became good friends by cooking and eating together.
In the meantime, all the kids were running up and down the street, making friends, rolling in the piles of peat moss, sprinkling each other with the gypsum that was waiting to be spread to prepare the dirt for the grass seed and rinsing off with the neighbor’s hose and then we’d see who could ride their bikes, scooters, wagons and roller skates the fastest. None of us had all those toys but we each had something and we all shared with one another.
We were neighbors! We shared and we helped and we all loved each other. I’m not sure that this is what Jesus meant by “Love your neighbor” and I’m not sure that this is what His inquisitor meant when he asked “Who is my neighbor” but I am sure that this is where we begin.
Prayer: God of Love, in this time of deep division in our world let each of us humans look for one stranger each day that we might turn into our neighbor, even if it’s only for a day. Amen
Dianne Mahler