Thy Neighbor's Keeper

Read:Deutoronomy 33:13-17
Other passages: Psalm 132 Verse 15-18
& Psalm 123 Verse 1-3







         In mid-summer, when it is unusually warm, I tend to rise up at dawn, grab a cup of coffee, turn on my computer to take an online journey, and be on my front porch by nine, having napped slightly in between tasks. My cat Muffin comes out with me and I leash her up and sit with books I have currently on my book list that I buy or borrow from the library. On a glider, with my telephone beside me, it is peacefully serene outside.
         Last week, sitting there, I noticed a multi-yard sale being set up right in front of my eyes around 8 A.M. Some of my neighbors were participating up and down the road. We usually choose not to sell lately since what I have is not much in the way of second-hand goods. Already they were all laying out their wares across the street. The two houses across the road are well-built and large. That day, I noted my neighbor dragging out boxes and boxes of toys, building bobs, amazing gizmos for children—all to enjoy for those less fortunate who might buy. Of course, these things that are used for endless fun. There was merchandise under two large rented tents, that I could see from my porch. A beautiful physical therapist and her husband, Rick, an ambulance paramedic graces this house. She was busy pricing good under the tents, on the lawn, glazed with early dew. Beside her, the next house over, a brilliant younger woman lives by herself, who had books, clothing, antiques to sell In her double-door garage.
         I waited a bit. Finishing a novel titled Cashmere by Elaine M. Vincent, a young writer from Publish America, I placed it on top of Passage To Romance by Denise Sinn and several other books I had begun. Who could finish anyway with a day like this? I had quit reading and run into the house to find some money to spend, having scooped up the books and sticking the cordless phone in my pocket just before that cautiously releasing the leash from Muffin’s red collar. I shushed her into the house, into the kitchen, let go of everything that was in my arms on the table and cried out to her, Muffin, you ball of joy! What a pretty girl!
         Now I had ten dollars in my pocket. Striding into the garage of one neighbor I bought a ceramic Mexican little man with a sombrero in art form, taking a siesta, his hat down over both his knees in yellow, blue, and white colors, glazed and shiny. I just knew I would call him Pepe and give it to my mother knowing she had had one in an exact replica. Later on, I did. She placed it in the very front of her vanity with her vanity jewel box and Chanel No. 5 perfume. I also bought some best-selling books at the garage sale, along with a comedic book about cats in photographs. Yet the clothing. Nothing would have fit me so I thanked her and her friends selling with her, saying a polite goodbye and went off to the large home across. What a busy and affable neighbor she was. Being in medicine is the best. Her and her husband had done favors for myself and Billy previous to that. I had saved eight dollars. The two neighbors sat underneath the one tent with a cash box, hoping their children’s display would be noticed. Lots of cars show up when these yard sales go on, the several we had participated in was busy with parked cars all day long ‘till 3 P.M.
         Something happened to me just then. Why? Why I don’t know. Was it because I only owned old clothing for the most part? Was it because I hadn’t bought clothes for much of fifteen years on a regular habitual basis? I did something oh so awkward. I raced over to this cherubic mother of two young boys, a bit like a she-devil, and asked blatantly and loudly, “Do you have any clothing?”
         “Honey, I’ll get you something,” she quickly remarked disappearing in a flash until I could not even keep my eye on her.
         My eyes darted to her nicely dressed youngest son who tried to say hello while sitting in a miniature chair under a tent in the shade. I lingered carefully for her, perhaps knowing all along that she hadn’t initially offered clothing , my head numbed with consienciousness and fear that I might lose her as a friend when I was so desperately fond of her family. She came running back out of the house like wildfire with a brand new square-woven Alfred Dunner short-sleeved green top with its tag still on it. I swooped it up. She said eight dollars. I paid her.
         “ I was going to wear that but it’s just for you,” she said.
         “Just my size,” I answered, holding the top up against my chest to notice how pretty it was. Why, it originally cost thirty-nine dollars.
         By now, I knew she was a tower of strength and at that moment somehow an idol. Mother lives across town and I recalled our neighbors as a child. It had been a similar situation. The little red-brick house close by the large, spacious house of my mother’s neighbor, a contractor and family. Mother’s friendship still flourishes with her to this day at eighty-three years old and eighty-six. I could not but keep the top, thick with friendly advances, groveling in small change, somehow placing her gently in my mind, hoping she knew I had just got myself schooled again on good neighbors. Did I have to be grateful? Why was I the one that had things taken away from me? Would God ever see my good points and grant me a prayer for a more comfortable life? I wasn’t complaining. Billy and I were staying alive, as I faltered precariously in my “happy ivory tower”.
         The next day, a neighbor boy at twelve came by to cut our grass. The freshly smelling lawn after a cut intoxicated me. The boy had brought a cucumber over from his mother’s garden, his scintillating eyes peering out at me from behind glasses, the fragile framework, the nervous readiness to work apparent. As he left with his money the both of us noticed fourteen pears on my next-door neighbor’s tree, its branches bending over in my yard. They have been for the deer. It was no test of will not to gather them if they fell to the ground. Deer are fed regularly and it makes it a genuine paradise.

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         Why not rejoice and keep the article of clothing without shame. I am dearly hoping the neighbor that sold it and I will be friends for a long, long time.