on neighbors

I have a confession to make.

We live in the in-between neighborhood. Four blocks to the east are the cool kids; eight blocks to the west, the crime rate rises significantly. We LOVE our house. We love the other homes and the neighbors, we feel perfectly at ease on our street, and we are comfortable walking in our area. Most of our neighbors are working professionals or elderly. Most have families, most have children or grandchildren, most work in their yards on Saturdays. It's a typical urbanish middle-class neighborhood, in my opinion.

Except for the house next door to ours. It's a Section 8 house, which is a code word for poor. Section 8 is a program that gives people who would normally live in housing projects a way to live in a house in a neighborhood. The primary tenant is Mary, an elderly, benign woman who sits on her front porch and waves when the sun is out. She has no children, but a constant stream of nieces and nephews park in her front yard in the afternoons. Mary's niece, Paula, is from New Orleans and moved in after Katrina. She works the night shift at Waffle House and has chronic back problems that cause a noticeably painful limp.

Here's my confession: I'm a terrible neighbor to them. I have made no effort to befriend them at all, despite the fact that Mary and I are the only two people on the block who are home during the day. Tonight, Paula knocked on the door right at Asher's bedtime. I started not to answer. She knocked three times before I decided I was acting ridiculous - Asher could wait five minutes for bed - and opened the door. "Our power's out," she said. "I need a cup of water and to borrow your phone."

This is the essence of the Christian faith, to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. Jesus said that however we treat the least desirable in our midst, we have responded to Him in kind. Tonight I responded grudgingly, nervously. I did not invite her in. I didn't offer Mary a place to stay, even though she's old and frail, and it's cold enough to need the heat on. I brought water and the phone to the stoop. She said thank you without looking at me.

It is to my shame that I have been such a poor neighbor to her. But I see the truth in Jesus' words - I do respond to Him in kind. I'm usually just as bedrudging of my time, of being thrown off my routine, when God asks me to do something as I am when Paula knocks on my door or Mary waves from her stoop.

Tonight I am praying for a more willing heart, toward Jesus and toward my neighbors.