on neighbours

How easy it is to get so wrapped up in what's going on for us, how the world is affecting us, that we don't see our neighbours until it is too late.

On the slightly more positive side of that observation, last night my sister and I were invited to join our neighbours on our shared drive way for the celebration of their wedding with a feast. We were hesitant, knowing no one, not really knowing the bride and groom, not knowing what was expected. In the end I heard an echo of a conversation I'd had recently, in which I was reminded that it is not so much how we offer hospitality, as how we receive it, that is our participation in the mission of God. How we receive hospitality. So I went out there grateful for the opportunity to receive my neighbours' hospitality, and found myself wishing I had got to know them better sooner, as we'll not be living here much longer. Still, I am grateful for the chance to share in this celebration, and to have received a most generous, warm, welcome from our neighbours and their friends.

On the less positive side of that observation, I wonder if we knew some of our other neighbours better, they might have come and talked to us when they were concerned at the number and position of the cars on the street, rather than calling the council, who sent someone to slap fines on us. One guy received a $40 fine for being 10cm over a yellow line for not very long, and I got a $60 fine for parking on the gravel at the top of our driveway, end of a dead-end street, out of everyone's way. NOT HAPPY JAN!!! I cannot get over the officious, legalistic, ungenerous attitude of our neighbours, and wish we'd got to know them better, too, so that we might have parted as friends, not in the spirit of antagonism that now hangs in the air like a foul stench. I don't know which of our neighbours called the council, though I have suspicions; if I did I might go and apologise for the cars, and express disappointment that they couldn't come and talk to us first.