I remember being in a workshop years ago – I can’t remember what it was for – and at one point one of the attendees challenged the facilitator. They raised their hand and pointed out that we should keep to ourselves because even Robert Frost made famous the line ‘good fences make good neighbours.’
The facilitator paused, and then offered her interpretation of Frost’s poem “The Mending Wall.” She said that the inverse was true. The wall/ fence was not built to keep the neighbours separate. She said every year the neighbours would have to walk the length of the fence, which could be miles, to ensure that all the stones were in place and there were no holes through which livestock could wander off etc.
It was in the mulit-day process of checking the fence that these two neighbours would come to know each other, come to rely on each other, and come to help each other.
This Sunday we explore the familiar call from Jesus “love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength; and love your neighbour as yourself.”
Simple, right? Well, maybe when we’re all getting along. But what if someone has hurt me/made me angry/disagrees with me?
Jesus doesn’t say we have to like each other – or even agree with each other; but we do have to love each other.
Let’s explore together how that might be possible.
See you on Sunday.
Julie.