When My Neighbor Lives Next-Door
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What if my neighbor literally means my next-door neighbors, I ponder as I watch my son playing next to me. There is a tendency in broadening the definition to dismiss the obvious–that those who live next-door are included in the mandate to love my neighbors.
The car jutted forward, sending mulch flying as it leapt, then plummeted. The clubby little-man hand clutching it was sooted dark like the brown wells big and round above his handsome grin. “I got wats of cars!” his excited words tumbled over each other in their hurry to get out. He stood, mulch raining from his knees and forearms, to thrust the hot wheels in his hands towards a neighbor who stopped over to say hi. “I got wats of cars,” he repeated.
When he stands next to his dad he comes up about mid-thigh, but his dad is tall and he brushes the chin of the sister closest his age who’s got almost 4 years on him. He is quick to see the funny in almost anything, makes friends wherever he goes, and is adamant about not missing out on anything—classic Enneagram 7 stuff though he is only 2 and can’t speak for himself on what motivates him. He is adored by all who meet him—with the exception of the sister who never wished for a brother (I speak no lie here).
He plays catch with our next-door neighbor, gets asked if he wants to play by boys four times his age, and is sometimes cheered on in his potty training efforts by an entourage. This kid will grow up surrounded by neighbors who know him and love him, and that is a blessing untouched by even the finest of words.
Some of us have a village, and many of us have neighbors nearby—but what if our neighborhood became our village? What if some of our closest friends were only steps or blocks away? What if we had only to venture next-door to find camaraderie in the moment loneliness creeps in? What if we had the wisdom of those older than us, the inspiration of those younger than us, and the awareness of those different from us at ready disposal? What if babysitters and dog-sitters and plant-waterers and this-is-too-heavy-to-carry-and-I-need-help assistants were less than a phone call away?
I find myself challenged and inspired by Leslie Verner. Her book Invited: The Power of Hospitality in an Age of Loneliness, recently released—and friends, it’s a good one. I keep coming back to these lines: “What if we took that same sense of purpose and calling we often attribute to cross-cultural workers, pastors, and missionaries, and poured it into our right-here, right-now lives? What if we weren’t made for more after all? What if we were made for this?” (48).
“What if we were made for this?”
A village made up of neighbors.
Filling our homes with conversations and play and listening and prayer—with our neighbors.
Cultivating growth in spiritual formation, authentic community, and loving others in practical ways in unison with our neighbors.
What if . . .
What if the way forward is back where we started years ago, with the people nearest us.
What if we didn’t let our online friends edge out our real-life friends, especially those we can see through our windows and over our fences and out of our front doors?
What if our “right-here, right-now life” matters?
“Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. The second is, Love your neighbor as yourself. There are no other commands greater than these” (Mark 12: 29, CSB). I don’t need to run my finger across the underlines to press the words into my heart. Many of us are well-versed in the directive to love our neighbors. We may define our neighbors as the friends whose houses we can get to in 10 minutes flat, the regulars we see at the local grocery store, the throngs of people moving in and out of the sanctuary at church—but are our neighbors not also those next-door, and across-the-street, and around-the-corner-neighbors—the ones we walk past with our dogs and our strollers and our running shoes? (For more on this, check out “What Is My Mission?”)
We must first notice the people right in front of us to love them. I talk about that more in a previous post. But then we put love into real, practical action. We invite our neighbors to be part of our village because real love is put to the test in the way we divide our time and what we are willing to give. “Love grows by giving,” writes Ann Voskamp, “by being broken and given like bread” (The Way of Abundance, 135). I must be willing to be given for my neighbors if I want them to fill the role of my village.
Yet what does it mean to live given? Here are a couple questions to reflect on:
- What does my time say of my priorities? Am I living given with my time for my neighbors? How might I create more margin in my schedule so I can choose better to love though giving of my time?
- I must first notice my neighbors before I can love them—how am I being intentional about noticing my neighbors? How am I then putting love into real, practical action?
Friend, you are here reading today because something in you longs to respond to the call to love your neighbors well. Lean into that. Linger in that space where expectant hope and reservation collide. The best things come at a cost, so I am not going to tell you that you will always know what to do or that your neighbors will always respond as you expect. But I will tell you that it is worth the risk. Sowing into the community that can be right in your own neighborhood is a powerful way to #startwithyourpeople as Brian Dixon recapitulates.
We can take the first step—take our little bit of brave—and let it multiply bravery in others. In her book 100 Days to Brave, Annie F. Downs states it real: “That’s why we have to start. That’s why we have to go first. That’s why we have to be brave—so that others will be inspired to be brave along with us” (5). We do it in spite of the “what ifs” because we are not doing it for us, we are doing it for them. Because when it’s a village everyone in the village benefits, but someone has to initiate the community-building, the connecting of humans that can be bonded together simply because we live near each other—someone has to be brave first.
May we pause to pray before we part ways?
Father, we come to you, and today, maybe some of us are feeling small. Would you show us that the little brave we have, the little margin we can create in our schedules, may make all the difference for someone else? Would you plant your vision for our neighborhoods like a seed in our hearts and let it grow? May we have eyes to see the neighbors who live right next-door.
Dixon, Brian. Start With Your People: The Daily Decision That Changes Everything. Zondervan, 2019.
Downs, Annie F. 100 Days to Brave: Devotions for Unlocking Your Most Courageous Self. Zondervan, 2017.
Verner, Leslie. Invited: The Power of Hospitality in an Age of Loneliness. Herald, 2019.
Voskamp, Ann. The Way of Abundance: A 60 Day Journey Into a Deeply Meaningful Life. Zondervan, 2018.
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