I just had to write with a full heart. Aidan and I are snuggled up in the loft this evening waiting for our kids to settle into sleep. The usual routine. But this day will end better than yesterday because we started a new relationship today.
Our neighbours have been fleeting presences thus far. Aidan has been the one doing all of the interacting, and it has been mostly functional in nature. He's borrowed a boost, a phone, or a son for the day. As for me, all I have ever managed to do is wave out the car window. And I make sure I do every chance I get, as I recognize this act to be an intrinsic part of country relations. But I've known that it's not enough. Nothing meaningful is truly established through a wave.
This morning, however, I took it a bit further. I was out for my second-ever morning walk down the gravel road, wad of kleenex in hand, when a familiar white pick up truck headed my way. She was slowing down before I was even certain it was her, and my waving hand was soon clasped in a handshake as I announced that we were officially neighbours. Before long we were chatting way. For fifteen minutes, or so, we idled in the middle of the gravel road discussing everything from large families to bug bites. We were forced, eventually, to part or incur the wrath of the big yellow school bus driver rumbling up behind us, but before going our separate ways I told her I'd stop by later with the family.
And we did.
An hour ago Aidan and I were seated on their lawn, chatting with the whole family while our kids chased their dogs around the yard. I liked the way they liked my kids, reaching out to take theirs hands, and encouraging them to explore what was theirs. Even as it was taking place I could sense how important the interaction was. It was the beginning of our relationship with the closest neigbours we have. And I felt asthough we were being woven into a sovereign plan. Perhaps it's my wide-eyed optimism coming through again, the kind that doesn't look realistically into the future, but makes shiningly beautiful extrapolations based on one nice moment. But I am often struck deeply with a sense of opening. Asthough a door is swinging wide through which vistas of possibility exist for goodness and love and fellowship.
So I sit here brimmingly eager to trek into this new relationship. I will watch, and listen, and learn about, and from, my neighbours. I will pray for careful words and caring actions to flow from us all towards them. And perhaps God will take these dear people to himself somewhere along the way. That is my hope.
