Now, before I get to my blogging, I just need to point out, that man was ahead of his time when it came to his collection of Grandpa Sweaters. He had an incredible collection! One that would put most Grandpa's to shame!I've been thinking of neighborliness and community lately. In a sense we are all part of a community. It could start with your street (57th). Then your neighborhood (Millwoods). Then your city (Edmonton). Then your Province (Alberta). Then your country (Canada). Then just in the even bigger scheme, the fact that we all inhabit this marvelous place called Earth! We can create community anywhere, and yet we often do it anywhere but in our actual physical community.
What does being a neighbor mean, and what are the implications of that? Well, in biblical terms the idea is to love your neighbor as yourself. That definitely is a steep order. I mean I guess it depends on who your neighbor is. The house that we lived in prior to this one was a rental. We lived there for 2.5 years. We had some pretty interesting neighbors in the basement of that house. We had a crazy, laughing Nigerian. Three Moroccan chefs who cooked copious amounts of onions. A foul-mouthed carpenter. A smoking Chinese Man. A family from India, in which the Dad delivered pizza 7 days a week, the Mom could convince you to do anything for her, and an 18 month old daughter who thought it was fun to stand at our shared door and call for Abbi at all hours. (Did I mention they also lived nocturnally because of his job? So on weekends, he would get home from delivering pizzas at 4:00am, and the family would head to bed. Rob would be getting up to get ready for work at 5:00am). And finally, the two lovely Christian, hippie girls who baked us cookies. Whew! Just reading that makes me appreciate our current house so much! Minus the Christian hippies, they could be my neighbors any day!
We have lived here since last September, and really haven't met many of our neighbors yet. We are a bit hermit like (although I think we previously experienced such a ridiculous amount of neighbors in a such a short time frame, we could be neighbored out!). But we live in a townhouse complex, so its nearly impossible not to meet your neighbors as you are both entering your house at the same time, 5 feet from each other. So in our little "4 plex" we know all of our neighbors (There is a total of 105 units, but they are separated into little complexes). But the conversation has always been in the "Hi, how's the weather" variety.
But since Abbi's surgery our East side neighbors have been really interested in how she is doing. So we have been chatting a bit. Then one day she told me that the Dad was going in for cancer surgery in the upcoming weeks. You could see how concerned she was, as she herself had just survived breast cancer and three months of chemo last year. Wow. Hard to imagine. First Mom, now Dad. They have a daugher and a son.
So I thought, "I want to bake them something," as a gesture to let them know I am thinking of them during such a hard time. I toyed with the idea for days. I really am such a silly shy person. Finally, I did it! I think it was probably the first time I brought my neighbor baking, but I did it! For you pie baking, neighborly types this may be a small blip, but for me, it was slightly monumental!
Then in completely unexpected returned neighborliness, I received a loaf of fresh baked bread in return. Mmm, delish. Then the West side neighbors asked if we would be interested in a chair and desk for Abbi's room. Totally out of the blue. I said yes, not really knowing if it would match or be decent, but guess what? It matches perfectly with her room. What a wonderful surprise! A few weeks before that, the most Easterly East neighbor offered us all of her extra pansies that she didn't have room for in her garden. The neighborliness has been overflowing around these parts!
So lately, as I have been thinking of neighbors, and my neighborhood, and neighbourliness, it brought a smile to my face.
Well, until yesterday...
I belong to a prayer chain e-mail update through my old church. I got the e-mail in the early afternoon (not sure what time it was sent). It said "Urgent Prayer Request." That's never a good sign. There are a number of stories circulating about how the event went down, so this may not be 100% accurate, but this is what I get from our local news station. I believe this girl, or someone in her family attends the church that my old church was planted from (Follow, right?).
A group of teens was walking home from a house party Saturday morning. A young man (we're talking 25 years old here people!) in a minivan pulled up and offered them all a ride. They accepted and got in. He then started making advances at one of the young girls. They arrived at a local park. The group asked him to stop harassing her and were getting out of the van, at which point he pulled out a rifle and threatened one of the young men. The group scattered, and ran. In the chaos, he grabbed a girl (I believe the party was to celebrate her 16th birthday) and pushed her into the van, and took off with her.
This happened at 7:00am in the morning (the prayer chain update came in around Noon), and we were out driving at 3:00pm when the amber alert was issued. It was within a few hours of that she was found, looking for help in a back alley. There has been no information on her condition, other than that she was taken to hospital for observation.
Honestly, I felt sick to my stomach all day, from the moment I heard about it, until the moment when she was found. I can't even imagine what that girl went through, and I think its a parent's worst nightmare. I can't even fathom what her parent's would have been going through in those hours of not knowing. Her friend's must have been feeling such an array of emotions. And the girl, that poor girl. My heart goes out to her and her family. That is a terror that no one, especially not a 16 year old girl, on her birthday nonetheless, should have to experience.
And the thing that really gets to me? The thing that bursts my "neighbourly" bubble? This took place 10-15 blocks from our house.
So I'm not saying I've given up on being neighborly, or loving my neighbor, but boy, when you hear stuff like that, you sure want to think twice. Actually maybe, three or four times. But in the midst of that, I still want to see the goodness. Those "loaves of bread," if you will.
That poor girl!
ReplyDeleteI hear you on this one. Our southerly neighbours are known drug users...the strung out kind and their property proves it. Across the street neighbours fight with the druggy neighbours.
The north neighbours aren't too bad :o)
The druggy neighbours came to our door all the time wanting stuff. I finally had to make threats and call the cops. One morning the door knocking started at 6am on a Saturday. So I am probably not the best person to talk about neighbours with. I am a bit of a hermit too but it's not the best really and I can't allow fear to rule my decisions. We did struggle feeling like our neighbours needed Jesus and they do but my three kids come first especially with a hubby who commutes and is gone 12-13 hours a day. So having them over for coffee is not an option.
Hm That's really tough. I am so far removed from that kind of crime that it's hard for me to relate. But I'm sorry to hear about that happening so close to your house. I also feel sick for the girl. It's terrible what people can do to each other.
ReplyDeleteHow do you have faith in people when they are capable of such violence? It's amazing how resilient we can be though, to offer loaves of bread to our neighbours.
Keep up the neighbourliness. It makes all the difference in dark places.
Sandi,
ReplyDeleteI can definitely see where you are coming from with your neighborhood. That is hard.
I remember once we had a street guy come to our door at our rental house and offer to pull the weeds in the cracks in our driveway (Actually it was so bad, he was probably doing a public service!) for a small fee. I can't remember how much we paid him. Rob helped him a bit. We offered him some food while he was working.
He told Rob that he was trying to get a job, but wasn't really able to clean himself up. I wasn't entirely comfortable with him bathing in our house, but we rounded up all sorts of bath products, a towel, some clothes of Rob's that would fit him, etc. Plus, we paid him very generously for his work.
But then, he returned within 3 days, asking for more money. Honestly, he was a really nice guy, just in a bad place. We said no, but wished him well.
When Abbi was a few weeks old, he returned (probably about a month after his second visit). I was in the living room trying to calm her in the dark. It was about 11:00pm. I had the front door open (minus the screen door). I saw him come up the steps and ring the bell. For me that was it. So I had to wake up Rob, and he went out and asked him never to come again.
Looking back on it, I think we did really help that guy out, but I think there also came a time to draw the line, not only for our privacy, but for our family's safety.
So I think there are definitely times when we need to draw some sort of line when it comes to protecting our family, especially when our husband's aren't home. After that, I never felt totally comfortable in that house with the door open at night.
Its definitely a tricky line, but one that I believe God will open doors when the time is right.