W.W.J.D?
it’s supposed to be happy here. funny. i’m supposed to talk about this and that, light stuff. but once in a while i get sad about something.
tonight it is this dilemna i’m having that has me sad and up too late writing. i don’t like war, i don’t want to be in a fued. i want to feel safe and cozy in my home like anyone else. but there is a neighbor lady who tries my patience. i won’t get into the story of why she dislikes me because it would be one sided. she cannot blog here and tell all the reasons i am bad. but suffice it to say that she trespasses on my property and vandalizes my things. she throws my belongings in the lake, she rips my umbrella, she steals the knobs from my washer and dryer. she calls codes enforcement on me, she makes my life hell and gets pleasure from that. i would love to tell her name to the world, to write a letter to the neighborhood about her. but it’s not fair to slander someone that way. and so it makes me think about jesus and war. jesus said to love our neighbor and i have a neighbor woman that makes this oh so close to impossible. but if i choose to war with her, to fued, then the rest of my days will be spent this way, in war. what kind of way is that to spend a life? somehow it seems my only choice is to love her. but i don’t know how to start that. it may sound strange but ultimately loving my neighbor seems like the only way to find peace for myself. otherwise i am just burning up inside trying to think up the best way to get her back, to get the last word, the upper hand. i know what that burning sensation feels like and it is not pretty. i have also known peace and the feeling of peace in my life and it is good.
and this brings me to security. i must beef up my security. alarms, motion detectors and lights, better fences, better gates, better locks. i would be an idiot to let someone trespass and vandalize my things without taking proper steps to better security, with the intent of catching the neighbor on my property and sending her to jail. (you can only imagine how fun it is for me to spend my days creating elaborate security systems instead of time with my family or at work…)
and this all leads me to think about the other war, the one our country is neck deep in. i don’t have even the slightest answers to the mounting issues. but when i think about this neighbor who hates me, i can’t help but think about war in general, how it starts, what it consists of, how it escalates… (someone once said to me…”there’s nothing quite as bad as a bad neighbor”)
i do know that I do not want to be eaten up with anger and revenge. those 2 things can ruin even the best of men. but finding that love that jesus spoke of has got to be one of the biggest challenges of our day. when someone keeps choosing to violate the right that is your personal property, to walk from their yard and into mine with bad intentions… how the hell am i supposed to love them? that is the challenge before me tonight… the puzzle… the quandry… the dilemna…
what would jesus do? there must be a better solution than war. i spend so much of my time and life problem solving and i know instinctively that i must choose love over war. but war is so much easier than love. but also so destructive to our soul.
w.w.j.d?
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