Column: As I was welcomed to this neighborhood, so I welcome you
A man young enough to be my son moved in across the street, meaning I am no longer the newest resident in my little pocket of the neighborhood.
I invited him to our Fourth of July dinner, but he had another invitation I suppose. I hope I can be as welcoming to him as the others have been to me this last half-year.
People with dogs get to know each other quickest. Carson, Jewels, Alexander the Great, ChiChi, Pongo, Rolf, Cora, and Buck belong to people whose names I can remember. But I’ve completely forgotten the human names attached to Sophie, Olive, Sage, D.O.G. and the German shepherd my dog, Birdy, is so intimidated by that she pretends not to see him.
I found another knitter in our patch of neighbors, and a quilter too. I’ve heard there is a book club as well, but haven’t gotten details on that yet. My closest next-door neighbor and I talk gardening almost daily. The deer eat her cucumbers and my sunflowers, keeping us on a mostly failed campaign to send them elsewhere.
Today I have to break the news about a mole on its way from my flowerbed to hers. All of which is to say the word, neighbor, took on new meaning for me when I was the new one, the outsider welcomed in, the one accepted by people who were intentional about including me.
I’ve come with personal baggage and not a single person has asked to see it. They’ve simply welcomed me as I am, no questions asked, apart from what I need to settle in. To the one, they are intentionally decent human beings, good people even, watching out for one another and pitching in as needed.
Whether we are spiritual kin is less relevant to me than whether we are ethically, morally related to one another, literally bearing one another's burdens for the sake of everyone’s well being and happiness.
We need not label it Christian gospel for it to be so. We need not call ourselves church to do right by one another and by the community in which we live. I’m not so naïve that I don’t realize our personal privilege provides the time and opportunity for such extended care for one another, opportunity not afforded to every neighborhood everywhere. But what we do with what we have at any given moment is what God cares about, I think. I hope.
As you go about your day, I pray you have the chance to welcome and include someone into your own realm of care — in word or deed as God allows.
Peace & prayers, Pastor Annette
Annette Hill Briggs is pastor at University Baptist Church in Bloomington.
This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: Pastor says neighbor means something different when you're the new one