Did You Hear? - Neighbors

Greetings Dear Reader,

My Grandfather used to say during his sermons, “I am about to quit preaching and go to meddling.”  What he meant by this was always that he was to put a finer point on his message or call for real life application.  I am about to do the same so I will remind you in advance that I ponder these things so that I am a better man.

As I ponder this question I ponder my neighbors.  I think that in our culture this is not just the people that live near us but the people who sit near us at work, take our money when we shop, or serve us at our favorite restaurant.  The people with whom I have daily congress are my neighbors.

How often do we form opinions of the neighbors based on very little knowledge of the people.  I live almost in the sticks and have only two neighbors.  Both of them are good and kind people.  Even though I never say it to others I will catch my mind speculating things about them that are not at all neighborly.  This is always wrong. 

The things I think are serious or heinous in most circles.  They are, however, unloving.  They are, therefore, wrong.  It does not happen often but it is something about which I must be vigilant. 

How often do we form an opinion about one of our neighbors and turn that in to fact in our minds?  We then speculate to others about a person’s life, character, and behaviour.   We judge and condemn with no real truth in evidence.  

Jesus made it clear that we are to love our neighbor.  He did not say to love them unless they do something we do not like.  I know a man who will say the most raw and unkind things about his neighbor simply because he does not approve of the frequency or method that the man chooses to cut his lawn. 

Everything about having neighbors is an opportunity to live out the gospel.  Jesus made it clear that loving our neighbor is second only to loving God.  One cannot love God without loving one’s neighbor.  Jesus also said the every idle word we speak we will have to account for to God.  What you say about your neighbors will be asked about later.

Loving your neighbor can destroy barriers and tear down walls.  Slandering your neighbor and build barriers and create walls.  “Good fences make good neighbors,” is a lie.  As a Christ follower I am required to be a destroyer of barriers to faith. 

Mending Wall – Robert Frost

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,

That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,

And spills the upper boulders in the sun,

And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.

The work of hunters is another thing:

I have come after them and made repair

Where they have left not one stone on a stone,

But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,

To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,

No one has seen them made or heard them made,

But at spring mending-time we find them there.

I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;

And on a day we meet to walk the line

And set the wall between us once again.

We keep the wall between us as we go.

To each the boulders that have fallen to each.

And some are loaves and some so nearly balls

We have to use a spell to make them balance:

'Stay where you are until our backs are turned!'

We wear our fingers rough with handling them.

Oh, just another kind of out-door game,

One on a side. It comes to little more:

There where it is we do not need the wall:

He is all pine and I am apple orchard.

My apple trees will never get across

And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.

He only says, 'Good fences make good neighbors'.

Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder

If I could put a notion in his head:

'Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it

Where there are cows?

But here there are no cows.

Before I built a wall I'd ask to know

What I was walling in or walling out,

And to whom I was like to give offence.

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,

That wants it down.' I could say 'Elves' to him,

But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather

He said it for himself. I see him there

Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top

In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.

He moves in darkness as it seems to me~

Not of woods only and the shade of trees.

He will not go behind his father's saying,

And he likes having thought of it so well

He says again, "Good fences make good neighbors."

For those of you who like such things here is a song version of the poem based on the Oasis song Wonderwall.  Mending Wall – DursinMark

Wishing you joy in the journey,

Aramis Thorn

Mat 13:52 So Jesus said to them, "That is why every writer who has become a disciple of Christ’s rule of the universe is like a home owner. He liberally hands out new and old things from his great treasure store.”

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