| “Each of us should please our neighbors for their good, to build them up.” |
| —Romans 15:2 |
I have always maintained a rather high-handed and very inappropriate attitude toward neighbors. I do my best to have absolutely nothing to do with them. This decision came about from the very first “house” we owned, after I was fortunate enough to marry my beautiful wife. Here’ what happened:
Our first home, purchased when we married in 1968, was a 46 feet long, 8 feet wide mobile home. located in a mobile home park behind the then firehouse in Houghton, New York. It was an ideal location for two newlyweds starting out. We paid $1,700 for this rather nicely appointed tin can. Our mortgage payment was $47 each month—an amount we could just afford on my wife’s second-year new teacher’s salary and my salary as a staff member in the Print Shop at Houghton College—now Houghton University—the college from which we had both graduated.
Our “neighbors” were a newlywed couple just six feet away. It was far too close. There was virtually little privacy. They expressed their love for each other with an intense passion. They also argued frequently and loudly. In a rage following one of their arguments, the husband even discharged a shotgun between our two mobile homes that messed up the side of their mobile home. In order to retain some sense of separation, I decided to have nothing to do with my neighbors.
After one year in the mobile home, we moved to the Buffalo, New York, area and four years later to Hartford, Connecticut. From then on for the next 24 years we lived in various apartments. In each case, it was far easier and much better—at least from my standpoint—to have nothing whatsoever to do with my neighbors. That policy seemed to suit them and it certainly suited me.
After 25 years of marriage, we bought our first real home. It was a free-standing house in a Planned Unit Development where we only owned the land immediately beneath the house. Once again, I determined to have nothing to do with my neighbors. In addition, we had two incidents early in our time in that community that branded us as “oddly intimidating.” The first occurred right after we moved into the new home. Please let me share these two incidents with you:
On the day we moved into our newly built home, I had dragged an enormous pile of broken down cardboard boxes to the foot of my driveway. The neighbor right across the street rushed out to tell me that the Town of Windsor trash collectors would not pick up the unruly pile of boxes. Yet, in the morning, the pile was completely gone. Apparently my friend, a former student of mine who happened to now be the Fire Marshal for the Town, had told his friends in the public works department that I was moving in and asked them to extend me every courtesy. The next week, apparently following my example, the neighbor who had spoken to me put out an unruly pile of her own, which the trash pickup conspicuously left at the end of her driveway. And, just like that we were marked.
The second incident occurred a few weeks later when another neighbor had driven home under the influence of alcohol and had left his car running in the garage. Several hours later, enough carbon monoxide seeped into the house to set off the carbon monoxide detector. Upon hearing the alarm, the neighbor’s wife called the fire department. When the dispatcher announced the address, not only did the fire department apparatus respond, but the Fire Marshal—who had not yet memorized my specific address—also arrived on the scene with two Town police officers. The Fire Marshal later told me that he had requested extra help in case it was my house where the incident had occurred. Again, we were marked because another neighbor heard the Fire Marshal tell the police officers, “Oh! Good! It’s not my friend Dean Wilson’s house!”
After seven and a half years, we moved again. For the next nearly 15 years, we lived in a home in a suburb of Erie, Pennsylvania. It was located on a cul-de-sac in a truly lovely neighborhood filled with really nice people. We didn’t have a bad person in the whole lot of them. Soon after moving in, one of the neighbors did a great kindness for us while we were away. We realized that having at least a somewhat friendly relationship with one’s neighbors is not a bad thing. So, we learned our neighbors names, spoke to them when we saw them, stopped and talked with them on occasion, exchanged Christmas cards, and felt appropriate gratitude that they were such nice people.
Eight years ago, we moved to a Senior Living Community where we reside in a duplex Garden Home. Once again, most likely to my own peril, I have adopted the attitude of having nothing to do with my neighbors. My next move will very likely be to heaven. There, I sincerly hope I will have much in common with my eternal neighbors and will enjoy the true meaning of fellowship. In the present, at least for now, I recognize that my position of having nothing to do with my neighbors is not without its silliness and even its selfishness.
To completely put some biblical icing on my silly, separatist cake, I find the Apostle Paul offering these words of instruction, as found in Romans 15:2:
Each of us should please our neighbors for their good, to build them up.
I realize that, if I choose to have nothing to do with my neighbors, I can hardly have the opportunity to build them up. So, this is one blog post—perhaps one of many—where you, dear reader, must learn from my lifetime-long mistake. As we begin a new day, let’s continue to learn from each other and walk the road God has laid out before us to the glory and praise of His Great Name.
Based on a blog originally posted on Thursday, August 23, 2018
