Unhurriedly neighborly…

Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself. Matthew 22:36-39 NIV

To love our neighbor as ourselves is such a truth for regulating human society, that by that alone one might determine all the cases in social morality. John Locke

Just the other evening, I was walking my pup as the sunset began fading from the tattered storm clouds over the mountains. I was just about home when a couple of neighbors, who were also out walking their dogs, invited me to walk just a bit with them. Our fur family played with each other while we chatted and strolled. Along the way, we met a couple other neighbors and stopped and visited. Yes, I had things to do at home, but people are inevitably more important than most tasks.

 When I got home, I was thinking about how I used to have neighbors next door who would sit out on their porch on summer evenings; my husband, young adult sons, and I would come out too.  Either they would drift our way or we would drift their way, and we would just share a bit of congenial neighborly conversation.  Currently, I walk most weeks with a next door neighbor and we enjoy pleasant talks and sharing our lives in small ways. 

 My neighbors are in different seasons of life from myself and from each other, and we have different interests…so we will not likely become close friends. Yet our sharing conversation and our lives is such an amiable experience and builds relationships lending to harmony. Indeed, there is an old saying that “good fences make good neighbors”, but I would say that investing time in getting to know and care about your neighbors is really the key to having “good neighbors”.