INVITATION:
As we begin the second week of Advent (those four weeks leading up to Christmas), I will be offering some personal insights into my family's practice of Advent and how to put the meaning back in Christmas!
I hope you will grab a few friends and join me for my Advent talk at
Holy Redeemer Church in Burton, Michigan on Monday, December 10th at
6:30 a.m.
I look forward to seeing you there!
****
Are You My Neighbor?
I was reading this sweet little article in my Reader’s
Digest Magazine about neighbors, and it reminded me of our neighbors when we
were first married.
George and Grace lived across the street and he loved to
feed peanuts to the squirrels.
Martha lived alone after her husband died and enjoyed
putting my kids’ kindergarten artwork on her fridge.
Don and Clare never fussed about our kids rolling down the
little hill into their yard; when they went to Ireland they thought of us and
brought back special gifts.
Mr. Winters would arrive at my door with the biggest tomato,
squished from having been dropped—not to give it to me, but to proudly show it
to me.
The neighbors we had growing up were wonderful, too, and I
greatly cherish those lifelong friendships as well. There is something unique about neighbors
that become friends.
When we first moved into our current house, I visited our
backyard neighbor and introduced myself.
Both young mothers at the time, we have shared family events and our
children’s milestones.
You see the thing about neighbors is that they can be real
treasures to be cherished. It always
saddens me when I read articles about neighbors fighting over lawns and putting
up fences.
We did have a couple of neighbors growing up who had a fit
when our kickball accidentally went on their lawn, and now I wonder why. We lived in an active neighborhood where we
played hide-and-seek at night across many lawns, hiding in bushes and behind
garages. We played kick-the-can and
kickball in the street as well, giving way to the occasional wild kick which
would send a ball flying onto a nearby lawn.
Maybe when you spend time grooming your lawn, you get
protective of it.
That could be a good metaphor for faith and life, when you
think about it.
Have you created clean borders, edges around your life that
others are afraid to breach, lest they get rebuked?
Are you so protective and unwilling to be vulnerable, that you
have closed yourself off from others? Are
others kept out of those private spaces where they might be able to help you?
And when it comes to your faith, is it tied up in a neat
package that is not available to others?
Is your life so carefully trimmed that there is no room for messiness,
only perfection?
I don’t sense that being ultra-protective was the way Jesus
lived. In fact, one could argue that the
things he said and did opened him up to ridicule and subjected him to legal
threats and popular criticisms. He seems
to have been a living example of vulnerability.
Why? Because he knew
that loving others comes at a cost, and that must be personal. Domestic abuse situations aside, a healthy
vulnerability is not weakness, but strength in the face of assaults on morality
or our faith convictions.
A life that spills out into the open doesn’t really leave
any room for fear in the wake of vulnerability, but one that is closed off and
protective simply becomes rigid and unkind.
True sacrificial love, where we give of ourselves so
completely that we risk temptations and criticisms, is really the only love
worth offering.
Anything less results in
grooming a life unlived.
Janet Cassidy
Janetcassidy.com
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