On the Value of Neighborliness

The Peace of Wild Things

By  Wendell Berry 

When despair for the world grows in me 

and I wake in the night at the least sound 

in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be, 

I go and lie down where the wood drake 

rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things 

who do not tax their lives with forethought 

of grief. I come into the presence of still water. 

And I feel above me the day-blind stars 

waiting with their light. For a time 

I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

Wendell Berry, "The Peace of Wild Things" from The Selected Poems of Wendell Berry. Copyright © 1998


I have always been amazed and then saddened about people being unwilling to perceive a problem when it's staring them in the face. I too, like Wendell Berry, have used nature as my solace and comfort but instead of just passively lying down I choose to act as well when "the despair for the world grows in me." Instead of despair, it turns into a growl and anger propels me to get active.

I've been watching the differences between people who have a lot of money and people who have a little or nothing—that gap grows and grows. Any student of history knows that you can’t have a viable society if you organize the economy of a country that way. Depriving people of basic healthcare, education,  housing or any of the social goods from our wealthy country and you are going to have a heap of problems. Someone wiser than me said that it comes down to neighborliness. If you do not have a practice of neighborliness, society becomes unfair and unlivable.

Let's focus on neighborliness. This focus allows all of our issues to become much clearer. This will require a generosity of heart and thought. There are those who are literally afraid of neighborliness, they are red hot to label this thinking as socialist or communist instead of what it is, commonsense kindness. Please ignore the meanspiritedness that runs amok in the world. Instead let's focus on what happens when there is a natural disaster. 

In Houston, in Puerto Rico, in Florida, in New Orleans during and then after the flooding there were so many stories of ordinary citizens rescuing their fellow neighbors, humans and animals alike. Some risked their lives for these others by treating all of them as their neighbors. So that's the personal level, expand it to our government and that's how we could treat our country's citizens with the same courage and neighborliness. We could turn things around. 

There are many ways to practice neighborliness — of course the personal but also it requires the private sector, the corporations, the government, the church all being involved. When everybody has a stake in maintaining a viable community [starting with our country caring at a deeper level],then this would bring an emotional maturity that is sorely lacking with the current GOP administration.  Arresting asylum seeking immigrants and throwing them in jail, and worse, separating families and bringing children as young as two into court. Make sense of this for me. 

Neighborliness is key. Getting caught up in an abstract discussion with labels takes energy away from what our real concerns ought to be: a prosperous, respectful, successful nation filled with healthy, educated citizens. 

We are all one under the skin. That is evident when someone dies and there lies the inert body, who then is better or worse? Or imagine, go to any hospital nursery and see the row of babies just born laying in all their new born glory before you, who is better and who's worse? These are new born people and they have certain inalienable rights. To sort them out in terms of who's deserving of those rights and who's the most qualified and who's not... is imposing a judgment on our human reality. That simply can't and must not be.

I read an article  in Newsweek magazine a couple of years ago which sums up the nuttiness of people  who call  themselves  religious yet hate their neighbors. 

"religious extremists wave their Bibles at passersby, screaming their condemnations of homosexuals, they fall on their knees, worshiping at the base of granite monuments to the Ten Commandments while demanding prayer in school, they appeal to God to save America from their political opponents, mostly Democrats. They gather in football stadiums by the thousands to pray for the country’s salvation and yet they regularly support immoral men who are cons, serial abusers, intemperate, and some who are thrice married with children from three different wives. Make sense of this for me.

They are God’s frauds, cafeteria Christians who pick and choose which Bible verses they heed with less care than they exercise in selecting side orders for lunch. "

I did monkey with the quote above throwing in the part about the recent nonsense from the far right but please  understand this is all about being a good neighbor whether you are religious or not. Act with love towards your fellow citizens. We can build a better world one kindly act after another.  This is my  hope and plea. 

Susansmagicfeather 2018 copyright Susan R. Grout all rights reserved