neighbors

Although we live in the country, we have a lot of neighbors. The only way to get where people can't see me on our 42 acres is to walk back to my cabin, which is far enough down an incline to be out of sight even of the monstrosity of a three-story house a next-door neighbor is erecting. The above picture was taken in 2005, when my much-heavier-then husband was putting the cabin in place. (For my newer readers, it's just an old poolside shed someone gave us that Cliff fixed up for me, a retreat where my dog and I sometimes spend a night, enjoying the seclusion and the campfire.)

Being a loner at heart, I have had a tendency to complain about having so many people living nearby, but this morning the realization hit me that if it weren't for one of our neighbors, Cliff wouldn't have the good job he's now held for fifteen years. There's another fellow across the highway with whom Cliff rides to work, saving us a fortune in gasoline and wear-and-tear on our car. And before I retired, there was a neighbor with whom I rode to work often.

Cliff and I often laugh about the entertainment value of neighbors as we peer out the window to see what they're up to: "Look, Cliff! I think there's something funny going on over there!"

Don't laugh, you'll be old someday, watching the neighbors out the window. It happens to the best of us.

In line with the judgmental attitude I mentioned yesterday, there's the fact that we can find all sorts of faults in the neighbors, resulting in a holier-than-thou feeling: "Good grief, that woman's getting fat; she needs to go on a diet." "I wonder just how much money they spend on drugs over there?" "When our kids were home, we never let them run the neighborhood like that." "Looks like they're fighting again."

There's so much more, but you surely get the idea.

Reminds me of the old Kristofferson song, "Jesus Was A Capricorn":

Jesus was a Capricorn, he ate organic foods.
He believed in love and peace and never wore no shoes.
Long hair, beard and sandals and a funky bunch of friends.
Reckon they'd just nail him up if He come down again.

'Cause everybody's got to have somebody to look down on.
Who they can feel better than at anytime they please.
Someone doin' somethin' dirty, decent folks can frown on.
If you can't find nobody else, then help yourself to me.

Eggheads cussin' rednecks, cussin' hippies for their hair.
Others laugh at straights who laugh at freaks who laugh at squares.
Some folks hate the whites who hate the blacks who hate the Klan.
Most of us hate anything that we don't understand.

'Cause everybody's got to have somebody to look down on.
Who they can feel better than at anytime they please.
Someone doin' somethin' dirty that decent folks can frown on.
If you can't find nobody else, then help yourself to me.

I kid you not, I am working on this trait of mine. Not just watching what I say, but being careful what I think. I am mentally slapping myself at least a dozen times a day when I catch myself criticizing someone I see on the street or on television. Or someone whose words I might read in a blog.

It's changing the way I look at myself and at life.

I'm learning that I'm not such hot stuff after all.

"Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye." Words of Jesus, found in Matthew 7:3-5

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