Love Thy Neighbour

My husband and I are currently renting a house in a community that has many young couples/people/families in it. During the school year there are many parties to be had on our street, and during the summer months we're realizing there are far fewer vehicles parked along there.

We've been living in this area for seven months; we started in the basement suite of the house we're now in, and moved upstairs early this year when the opportunity arose. Our neighbours on both sides are fairly young. On one side there are renters as well, both upstairs and downstairs, most of whom we believe to be uni/college students because we don't see too much of them since school's finished up. On the other side is a young couple who are both working and currently five months pregnant! We're friendly with our neighbours on both sides, but don't really have a real relationship with them.

On Sunday, my husband and I were out for most of the day, starting with church in the morning, lunch with the family, and then a bit of time spent with my sister-in-law. When we arrived home in the later afternoon we found our front lawn to be freshly mowed (yum, I love the smell of fresh cut grass!). But who would have mowed our lawn?

My husband's brother headed over to grandma's after lunch to mow her lawn, perhaps he decided to come over to our place afterwards and mow ours as well? Possible, but not likely since we live on the opposite side of town to grandma.
Our neighbour’s lawn was freshly mowed as well ... could it be he?

Sure enough it was.

How's that for loving thy neighbour??? We often quote the "Golden Rule" and are quick to tell others to "love thy neighbor as thyself", but how often do WE actually follow through with what's coming from our mouths?

Our neighbour Mike, who we hardly know, put these phrases into action as he mowed our lawn. Now, we don't have a huge lawn so it wasn't like it was an incredibly straining task for him, yet he still went out of his way to be great neighbour. What an example of what true community should be. Though the relationship maybe isn't there, he showed common ownership, something I think the average person generally overlooks.

We often define community by the relationships we have with one another, but community can also be defined as "a group of people living together in one place, esp.one practising common ownership". I think it's about time we started building community, but not just in and around our close relationships, let’s start building good communities around common ownership; around "loving thy neighbour".

Happy community building.

~cj