Getting To Know Your Neighbors Creates Community

In our fast-paced, stress-filled world, we often do not create the opportunities that we need in order to get to know our neighbors. In days past, good neighbor relations were the staple of every strong community. Being able to share life's experiences, both good and bad, with those who live so close to us was once considered one of life's greatest blessings.

These days it is the exception rather than the rule to take the time to create strong relationships with the people we share our community with...and we are each the poorer because of it. Each one of us has a story to tell, a hand to lend, a laugh to share, and friendship to give. What keeps us from extending so much of ourselves to the families that live around our own may be those same things that prevent us from experiencing many of the great blessings of our parents or of our youth: A changing world that focuses more on the individual than the family and the need to remain isolated in order to feel "safe and secure."  Someone once said, "If you always do the things you did, you'll always get the things you got." If we want to grow as a community then we have to risk breaking free from the bonds of isolation that are so easily created by and for us. We must reach out to our neighbors and let them know that they matter and that we care. If we do that, even in the most seemingly insignificant of ways - like a wave as we pass on the street - then we are moving toward a better community and a better way to live.

Just because our culture has pushed us away from ourselves does not mean it is right, it just means that we have to work that much harder in order to reconnect with one another and create a better environment in which to live.

So lets all try to be a good neighbor!