Neighbors

I had a thought of writing a little something about marriage today so I did and leave it to me after all that work I forgot to save it. Ahh well tonight something far more coo coo happened so I feel like speaking about being neighbors and neighborly. My wife and I have lived in a few duplexes in our life together and have always had neighbors. We have had friendly neighbors, quiet neighbors, young neighbors and even some neighbors that would make nitro circus proud. Recently though we have now joined the ranks of having a "crazy" neighbor. We have done everything to be cordial, helpful, and good neighbors. Well that has not held true for those who live on the other side. We have had a few occasions of cursing around our kids about our dog, and a few about our son and his friends skateboarding. Finally this culminated in a call to our local sheriff the other day. All craziness aside it has been a wonderful lesson to our children on what is right to do and what is not right. Having love for a neighbor is extremely hard, you don't know them...they don't know you, so you immediately don't have much to go off of until you talk more with them. We certainly did that with our neighbors. Then there is the helpful aspect, offering to help your neighbor with anything they cannot do themselves. We have done that also. After all of this we receive cursing around and at our children? Well the right thing to do here is to confront the situation but how? Do you go thump some sense into them or curse them out and be unfriendly? We decided we would allow the law to handle mediation on right and wrong...they explained that cussing at a minor is harassment and is not acceptable. So now we are left wondering why our neighbors hate us and despise us so much...we have done nothing to deprive them of their peace or life. They simply do not like my son skateboarding and my dog who occasionally poops on their side of the yard albeit upon the ridge at the far back. Yet we have yet to see them approach us in a nice way and discuss there concerns. The lesson as I told my kids is that our neighbors will do and say what they want but if they cross the line we handle it the right way. We dont need to wish ill will on them or talk behind their backs because in the end it will be made right. Our landlord chatted with us tonight and said he will not renew their lease. So in the end we did the right thing and God will rid you of those people who don't accept love thy neighbor as thyself....we sure tried to but you cant love someone that doesn't want your love. We pray they find peace wherever they live.

Hope

Hope is such a widely used word today, what do we hope will happen in our lives? The real question and perhaps the better question is what do we hope for other people's lives? The time for selfishness is greatly expanding due to technology and the improper application of the value of technology. Had Oppenheimer used his brilliant mind along with other scientists to invent an unlimited source of power instead of a destructive weapon we wouldn't be slaves to power companies today...I have seen passion within people be dashed by others because of an idea they bring forth, and why?, because those folks dashing these ideas never want that person to succeed. Unfortunately we give up without even trying, I'm guilty of that. I always think, " One day I will show them!" Then I just give up on my idea and move on. I think constantly of new ideas and wonder if I'm the only one being told that my ideas won't work or are useless. My hope for others is that we can come together with ideas that may not look like they will work from one persons perception, but will work when we come together and include all of our ideas and find a way to try to make them work. The only way this will ever work is when we give up self for the love of our fellow humans. I know its hard because we feel the need to separate ourselves as individuals, but I think we can still retain who we are by giving others insight into our ideas. Right now there is someone out there who agrees with me. My hope is that if you're reading this blog, it's you :)