Love your neighbor

²⁹ “The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. ³⁰ Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.³¹ The second is this:Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these.”

Mark 12:29-31

New International Version (NIV)

I Still find myself avoiding people most of the time. Alone is easy for me. I can always immerse myself in something that doesn't require company; Reading, games, internet surfing. My mind is filled with people, places and things that are unreachable to me. I ignore those who may actually desire my time and attention. I'm mostly a prisoner of my self-centered nature. I didn't mean to get like that. Like a lot of people I know the information age has grabbed me in a choke hold and refuse to let me go. Friends on Facebook, Twitter, tumblr, and whatever new social network comes out is easier to maintain. I can write the words love and hugs in the comment section, it's easier that way. Don't get me wrong I have met many really nice people this way, but Abba wants us to love and hug the people close to us. He puts us in places or around people to be salt and light to them. We can't ignore those closest to us. I have been guilty of this very thing too many times to count.

Since moving into this building almost three months ago, I have mostly ignored my neighbors. When I do happen to run across a few of them, I speak and talk to them gracefully. I have helped with groceries, wheelchairs and doors. For the most part we are strangers forced together by circumstance. We can each shut our door and live separated by thin walls. There are a few that refused to let me shut them out. I thought them intrusive, and pushy, but I have come to appreciate them. The week I moved in a woman knocked on my door, and matter-of-factually stated that she heard, "You don't have furniture." I was a little taken off guard, mainly because I have lived in my own little bubble for so long. The last few places I've lived were not neighbor friendly places. We spoke and might have even formed an opinion of each other, but no bond. There was no borrowing sugar, or baking cakes welcoming new-comers to the neighborhood. We were one notch above random strangers passing without barely a glanced. Somehow I got used to that. We were the working class.

This building is different, very few of us still work. We are society's cast-off; the elderly, disabled, and handicap. Some have lost limbs, some have legs that were never able to carry them, some worked on jobs that were so physically stressful, they walk with crooked and bent backs, some are accident victims who never quite recovered, veterans that just saw too much and never forgot the pain, and like me some have been struck down non-expectantly by illness that left their heart weak and fragile. While others have gotten older, and living in this building makes them feel independent, and less lonely for the children that they spent their lives loving; whom now have lives apart from them. We're all sizes, colors and nationalities. The one thing we have in common is are need to be loved and accepted.

Before I lived out my first week in this building the woman that first knocked at my door invited me to our building committee meeting. All the women on the committee that attended that meeting were all older,  and either grumpy, or bitter and gossipy. Oh, did I mention bossy? I was the new kid on the block. I was on display and all eyes were on me. Before long they took me under their wings, because in their words I was "someone's child." I lost my mother, grandmother and adult status. You want to know how bossy old ladies make you feel- like a child. The one thing in my favor is the fact that I passed inspection. Of course I was asked a multitude of questions,(Are my parents alive? Where did I grow up? What kind of upbringing did I have? I guess my answers were satisfactory, because they not only approved of me, but asked me what responsibilities I preferred in the committee, secretary or treasurer. I chose to be secretary in a weak and timid voice, mostly out of fear, and my excessive desire for approval.

The truth is: I had planned on making one meeting, and dodging the committee members for the rest of my life if had to. I had learned to dodge the first woman in my first two weeks as a resident. It was easy she uses a walker for assistant. I would sometimes run or duck back into my apartment when I saw her coming. I tipped toed around my apartment if she knocked. I ignored her as if she were the Jehovah Witness at my door selling Watchtowers.

Since becoming the secretary of the "Old Biddies Committee" or OBC as I call them when out of ear shot or when I'm complaining to my sister. I have had to take on an active role in our little community. Since most in the the building are older or have debilitating illness, I appear to be one of the younger healthier ones. I recently did the majority of the decoration on two of the three Christmas trees. That's the thing about the OBC, they will not let you "NOT" be apart of things, unless they don't like you. What I didn't realize at first is that even the OBC is a blessing from Abba. He has been telling me that relationships are important and he wants me to develop relationships. For the last couple of weeks I decided to do as much as I can for my neighbors; little random acts of kindness.

At first it was rather difficult to sit and listen to some of them. I could feel the bitterness and resentment coming from them. Their mouths were like poison to me. They spoke of family members that had stolen from them or hurt them. They spoke against other residents. I tried my best not to interrupt them, and ask them to forgive. There is a time to keep silent, and a time to speak. I didn't think it was the time to speak yet. Listening is sometimes a problem for me, like most know-it-all's(nice term for dumb-ass). I'm learning that true wisdom listens more then she speaks. Not only am I listening to the people, I'm listening for instructions from Abba. I smile and listen and defended the other residents in the way I have learned to defuse gossip over the years. Love is kind. Instead of preaching to them I mop and clean for them that are not physically able to do it for themselves. I listen and love.

In the building every year at Christmas time we have a door decorating contest. Although it's been many years since I celebrated Christmas; this year I have thrown myself into decorating. It was the day after Abba told me that relationships are important that I decorated the Christmas trees in the building. It's also the day I learned something else about myself. I'm a neat-freak and still a perfectionist. I got together with five of the other women in the building to decorate the trees. One women spoke of her sister being a perfectionist and how much she hated it.  She went on to call me a perfectionist. I explained that I am NOT a perfectionist, I just have a type "A" personality. She refused to do anything without my permission. Neither would any of the other women, except one.  Almost every time the only one that helped did anything, I would either undo it or sweetly tell her it was wrong. She was annoyed with me and the others seemed too nervous of making a mistake to participate. So they unraveled lights or put the hooks on the ornaments. As annoyed as I was with the only one that would help; I realized that all of them must have been annoyed with me. It was that awkward moment when I realized that I'm annoying.

When the one woman that actually helped with the hanging of the ornaments asked me why I keep replacing colors and re-positioning tinsel, I replied, "Because I'm annoying." The next tree I refused to allow myself to be so annoying. Unlike the first (blue and silver) I just went with a multi-colored, anything goes tree. I didn't care if it was three reds in a roll or two many green in one area (okay, I didn't care as much). After that everyone pitched in the ornament hanging. It truly turned into laughter, merriment and relationship building. The women told me that in previous years it took them several days(five or six) to decorate for all the trees. We did it in a few hours.

Since that day many of the residents have asked me to help with their door decorating. Even though I'm annoying and meticulous, and the really bossy one, I'm still accepted. Isn't that what love does. It let you be you, and it realizes that we are all different and we all have something unique to bring to each other. Isn't that a part of loving our neighbor? Isn't loving each others a  proof of loving our God?

Fearless