About this time last year I wrote something I titled “Interdependence Day” in which I criticized the highly-valued (and very American) character quality of independence. I pointed out that the American dream is really just a lifelong transition from community to individualism: we move out of our parents’ house to a college campus, then to an apartment building, then to a house with a small yard, and finally to a house with a big yard and a fence to match, and in each step we become more isolated from those around us.
I concluded by pushing for a return to a more communal mindset, describing a vision of a neighborhood where neighbors actually talk to each other and aren’t afraid to ask for help when it’s needed—and a call for Christians to be the initiators in this, to be the ones to ask to borrow tools instead of making a trip to Lowe’s every time they need something they don’t have, and to freely offer of their resources to others.
Great, right? At least that’s how I envisioned it in my head. But I never posted it. The words didn’t fit together, the tone was all off, and I just wasn’t able to say what I wanted to say. I regularly spend three or four hours a week writing and fine-tuning the things I post here, but after about five hours with that one I still had nothing. So “Interdependence Day” just sat in a notebook for awhile as July 4, 2009 came and went, and with it my opportunity for a timely play on words.
About a month ago we had new neighbors move in next door: a mom and dad in their 30s, their two kids ages five and six, and the kids’ grandparents, every one of them very outgoing and friendly. Especially the kids, and especially the six-year-old.
Every time he sees me outside, he asks if he can come over and help me with whatever I’m doing. (Can I bring my skateboard over, too?)
If I’m not outside, he’ll knock on my door to ask me for help with something trivial, like cutting up and peeling an apple. (I can’t eat the peel because I have a loose tooth and it might fall out.)
He saw that I was grilling shish kebabs the other day and he asked me for the recipe. (Oh, and can we borrow those metal sticks too? I don’t think we have any of those.)
In short, he’s making me be my ideal interdependent neighbor. He’s forcing my generosity, and the worst part is that my first reaction is often reluctance rather than the limitless charity I want to be known for. I’m sure his parents have skewers for grilling, but why did I tell him that instead of just saying they could borrow them any time they wanted?
So I’m learning. In retrospect, I think that’s why I wasn’t able to get the words out last year: I didn’t have any experience to back up my grand calls for reform. Maybe next year I’ll have something to say. In the mean time, the kid already invited us over to dinner. I need to step up my game.
This one smoked me out of the woodwork.
Your quality of humility is most appealing to me, and most apparent.
The 6-year-old future homeowner gets it: interdependence is a very natural derivative of proximity. If he moved in a few houses down, he is not only strange, but is a stranger. But since he is close, he is close in every way; or at least does not have the American wisdom to fall in line with how neighbors should really act.
Neighbors should really ignore other neighbors.
After all, having a conversation is not about someone else. It is about me talking. Or me listening. Or me preparing my next answer.
It is not about his absent father and thus his search for an adult who will listen and play; it is about me having five minutes left and zero minutes to talk to him. It is not about him searching for God through people like us; it is about me having better things to do. It is not about his skateboard but about my driveway cluttered and his physical safety.
It is about the common law of community, dangling like a guillotine’s blade over our relationship. At some point it will be dropped to divide us. This unspoken law is willingly enforced by all parties, like a time bomb set by two people on their breakfast table. Just when our community might blossom, just when its budding becomes so bright and colorful that it may in comparison shed true light on the dirty, cobwebbed corners of our lives. We wouldn’t want them to see that, would we?
Your quality, “reluc”tance, reminds me visually of “reluc”ent. It is a quality because, when rightly identified, it can be worked on by a powerful Spirit. Bravery can be discovered only by a soldier who knows he is fighting with Someone who has his back. And community is built upon interdependence, not independence. The soldiers who fought for us, and the Soldier who fought for us, did so to put an end to fighting.
Thanks for the blog Kevin. _Maybe_, I’ll be back.
If I love my neighbor in the blogosphere.