Neighbors

So, we've had a little trouble with a neighboring family lately.

First, our property line is weird, and when they bought the house next door (2008), they did not have the property surveyed and the surveying posts from when we bought our home (2002) were long gone. We have a mostly-fenced back yard,but we did not come close to the property line when we fenced, since it would cost more and it was not necessary. We have an idea of where the line is, but since it wasn't a huge deal with the previous neighbors, we didn't make much of an effort to say, "This is ours, this is yours" - we just cut the grass and went about our business, waving when we saw each other. But these neighbors, for some reason, think that we're lying to them about the property line. (Don't worry - on this my husband and I have agreed - we're trying to find someone to come out and survey our property so that this becomes a non-issue).

Second, we have dogs. Now our dogs come in at night and sleep in their crates, but during the day if it's nice, they are outside. This has not always been the case. In fact it's a within-the-last-month kind of recent. One of the reasons is that the children (one is 14 or 15 and the other child is 4 or 5) of our neighbors harass our dogs. The older child has been caught in our backyard on several occasions without permission and on at least two occasions, late at night. Once this summer I caught the older child with either a BB gun or a pellet gun, pointed in the direction of our house/backyard when the parents weren't home - I made a point of calling him down and telling him that if I caught him pointing the gun in the direction of our house or yard again, I'd have to call the police. And almost every day we have to go in our yard to collect the junk that gets thrown over the fence (toys, balls, shoes, coats, sweatshirts, coke bottles, etc.). At least twice I've collected the clothing items (if they weren't destroyed) and took them back the neighbors house and sort of laughed it off, but making sure to point out that these could be dangerous to our dogs. To no avail.

The other problem that I have is a weird one. My husband works second shift (he goes in to work between 4 and 5 p.m and gets off around 2-3 a.m., depending on how the news cycle is that night). The family that lives next door is sort of opposite - the husband works part-time and is usually home around 3 p.m., while the wife isn't usually home until dinner time or later. But anytime they need to talk to us, the husband comes over well after my husband has left for work (which is obvious since his car is not here and we don't have a garage). I am very uncomfortable with this, since usually he comes over when his wife is home and 99.9% of the time, when he comes over it's dark out.

Our houses sit sort of on a hill and we live on a very busy road. Neither of us have anywhere to turn around, so I generally back in the driveway so that I can pull out. But my mom will sometimes just pull straight across my yard to their driveway. Since our property line is odd, she does drive on a few feet of their yard (3-4 feet, I think).

Well, the other night (Wednesday) he came over and rang the doorbell after the kids were in bed; I was about to get in the shower, but had to re-dress and run to the door. I turned on the porch light and stepped outside, pulling the front door closed behind me, but he never stepped back toward our steps. He came over to ask us to not drive across his yard anymore, as he is having a hard time getting grass to grow (No, he has not seeded the yard or ever even turned a sprinkler on). I said, "Sure, that's fine. We won't do it again" and literally kind of shrugged and turned to go back in the house, when he kept on and on, and he threatened to put 2x4's with nails through them out in his yard so that if we do it again it will tear up our tires. I admit, I was angry - I mean, I said we would not do it again, what more was I to do? But anger got the best of me and so I added, "We'll be happy to not do that again but you need to make sure that your kids stopping throwing things in our yard for our dogs to chew up". And I turned around, came in the house and locked the door.

And I was angry. In fact, I am still angry. Yes, we (my Mom - haha) have been in the wrong by driving across their yard, but otherwise, we've been great neighbors to them (we've fed their cat, we've watched out for their home and gotten their mail when they were out of town, we've cut their grass a couple of times, we've loaned them tools and even let their son use our phone on numerous occasions, just to name a few things). But ...

I can say, quite honestly when I'm looking at my heart (grrr - sometimes I hate being held accountable by what I believe), we have not loved them. We've been annoyed by them. We've judged them. We've rolled our eyes at them. We have not, really, been good neighbors. I have not been a good neighbor.

The Bible tells us a lot about being a good neighbor (note: All scripture comes from the NIV) ...

In the Old Testament, Leviticus 19:18 tells us, "Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against anyone among your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the LORD ..."

In the New Testament, Mark 12:28 -31 says "²⁸ One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?”
   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.”

and

Galations 5:13-14 says, " ¹³ You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love. ¹⁴ For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” ¹⁵ If you bite and devour each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.

So. I have been doing a crummy job of loving my neighbor. And I have been doing a great job of holding on to anger. So. Now, I've put it out there - and I hope this will help to hold me accountable to learning to love my neighbor as myself. It's a lot harder than I would have thought.