...And Love Your Neighbors. Your Actual Neighbors.
As a new initiative to “love our actual neighbors”, our family has decided to partner with another family and set aside one Sunday night a month to host a potluck dinner for those who live close by.Last Sund
ay was our first dinner; it was a great success. (On a side note, I usually define success as simply “obedience”. So, perhaps this evening was a double successJ.)
10 adults and 10 children attended. The food was great (three types of chili, all the toppings, cornbread, brownies and cookies for dessert). I winked at 4 year old Abe as he snuck a second brownie, gave me an infectious smile and ran down the stairs before his mom noticed.The conversations went in many different directions. The guys gathered in the living room and talked sports and politics, work and shoveling sidewalks. The ladies were in the kitchen, surmising that we should eat before the guys or the kids figure out we’ve already started. Most of the children descended the stairs into the basement where Legos, board games and free space, (which allowed them room to wrestle with each other) awaited them.
We ladies heard about a husband’s birthday party the night before. Apologies that the husband couldn’t make it to dinner were uttered as he played beer pong until 3am and was sick all day and sleeping on the bathroom floor. We discussed the dreams of building houses one day, the effects of aging, child rearing questions, and more. Halfway through the evening one of the ladies left to go pick up a very stressed out single mom of two very active children, who just didn’t think she had the energy to come by herself. As she left that evening, she told me how grateful she was to have been invited.We are black, white and Indian. We are 4 years old to 30 year olds with children, to 74 living with a daughter, and everywhere in between. We’ve lived in the neighborhood 6 months to 4 years. We’ve waved hello on occasion, shoveled snow together, and a few we’d never met before and weren’t even sure who lived in that house. We are Evangelicals with diverse backgrounds, inactive Catholics, and those with no faith background at all.We have many things in common. And we are vastly different. 
We are neighbors; the ones God has instructed us to love. I don’t know about you, but it’sh
ard for me to love those I don’t even know. But I’m very grateful that we are taking the opportunity now.And I’m excited to see my new friends and call them by name the next time I see them in the neighborhood.The man answered, "'You must love the LORD your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength, and all your mind.' And, 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'" Luke 10.27