I’ve always placed great value on stories; big stories, little stories, but mostly true stories, and especially the true stories of the everyday happenings of life. Stories are what link human beings together, not only as individuals but with humankind of old. You meet someone and over time, they hear your story and you hear theirs. Without that telling of the stories, there is nothing worthwhile between you.
Every now and then, however, I forget how much I love having a good story to tell, and instead of discovering the charming details in life that make good little anecdotes, I often allow myself to lose perspective and the ability to appreciate certain things that I otherwise find, well, annoying.
Like two schnauzers and a Chihuahua.
Once upon a time, there lived two schnauzers and a Chihuahua (at least that was the closest thing anyone could come up with to call it). The black schnauzer’s name was Chauncey Marie, and the white schnauzer’s name was Wolfgang. Apparently, the enormously bloated, diabetic, blind “Chihuahua’s” name was BooBoo (I know this because every morning, I hear these names yelled over and over and over again by my next door neighbor who demands that her babies come to their mama RIGHT NOW, which they never do). These three dogs roamed freely about their neighborhood, caring little for socially accepted boundaries such as my rosebushes, my recycling bin, MY LIVINGROOM. They chased bicycles down the street, picked fights with dogs eighteen times their size, yapped incessantly outside my window whenever they knew Taytem was taking a nap, and of course the obvious, did their business in my yard. In fact, these little canine gangstas still do, without remorse.
I have hated those dogs from the moment we moved into this house, and wasn’t too fond of the neighbors either. They are a live-in couple in their early 40’s(?) who only seem to have three things in common: their love of gardening, their periodic drug-use during the winter months (I guess when it’s too cold to be gardening?), and those dogs. I had the hardest time the first several months we lived here not calling Lukus up everyday to tell him one more thing they did today that was just, “oh, my, gosh.” “She parked on our lawn again.” “He took the fat one out for another stroller-ride.” “They’re standing in the driveway cussing each other out again.” I started looking for every opportunity to be annoyed yet again. The dog pee killed all my rose bushes, he revved that rickety old truck for 20 minutes right outside my bedroom window, and on and on. Never mind the fact that they gave us one of their lawn mowers, or a weed-eater, or a chiminea for our porch, or a $50 gift card to a nice Italian restaurant when Taytem was born so we could continue our date nights. Never mind that she would pull our trash bins around front if it looked like we were going to miss trash day and then put them back once it was picked up. Never mind that they would go ahead and ride over our lawn with their riding mower if they were out doing their own, or that they complimented Taytem on how beautiful or smart she was, or how quickly I had gotten back in shape after she was born. None of that stuff mattered.
Then I remembered another story about a Man who once said to “love your neighbor.” But that wasn’t the part of the story that hit me so hard. It was when someone in the crowd asked, “who’s my neighbor?” that really got me one day. We enjoy vague theology, but when you get down to simple questions with obvious answers, things get very awkward. In theory, loving my neighbor could mean any number of people. After all, in this global community it’s not hard to comprehend loving all those orphan children in Africa, or the storm victims of Hurricane Katrina. But if I really allow the question to be asked, “Who is my neighbor?” I can’t deny that it’s the noisy, pot-smoking, schnauzer-loving, lawn-mowing couple next door.
So I gave it a try. I didn’t race from my front door to my truck, but looked to see if there was anyone to wave to on the way out. I went and bought plenty of pinion wood so we’d have enough to share between both our chimineas. Then one day, I prayed for them in my own heart. Then, at some point, the yelling outside stopped, the dogs stopped coming over to pee on my yard, and they started parking their truck on the street instead of by our bedroom window. Either that, or I just stopped noticing any of those things that were so bothersome. That was a few months ago…
Today, I was inside helping Lukus with some work on our house when I heard someone outside calling my name. It was our neighbor. He was showing me where he’d planted carrots and cucumbers in our new vegetable garden that’s on a strip between our houses. He was amazed at how big my cilantro had gotten, so I went and cut some off for him. He offered to take his chain-saw and cut some of the branches off of our tree that’s leaning on our roof so we’d have more light for our garden and our roof would be safer. I’m starting to wonder if loving my neighbor isn’t a little selfish, as it makes one feel so good inside.
And they all lived happily ever after.
But forget the dogs. Jesus never said I had to love my neighbor’s schnauzers or that other so-called “dog”, and I certainly won’t presume to commit heresy by elaborating on the Bible.
