Prayer for harmony in the 'hood

I love flowers, birds and quiet times with God, so I often go out on the back deck to read. And while I live in a very active neighborhood, with traffic noise and children playing, I can still hear the birds singing.

I love each of those sounds. To me, the traffic going by represents activity and progress. The children laughing and playing remind me of God-given happiness and boundless energy. And speaking of birds, I love what Mary Baker Eddy wrote about them in an article called “The Way.” She referred to birds as “the uplifted desires of the human heart” (Miscellaneous Writings 1883–1896, p. 356 ).

Recently, I was trying to “uplift my desires” in praying about an unhappy situation with my neighbors. I was planning a family reunion, and to accommodate the many people who were coming, I had done some landscaping in the back yard. This included installing a deck with a raised arbor for hanging plants.

What I hadn’t expected was that the deck enabled me to look down into my neighbors’ yard. This made them feel infringed upon, and they didn’t hesitate to let me know about it.

So there I was—the reunion was coming soon, and I really needed the deck for that event, as well as for the enjoyment it had been giving me. Now, knowing this was causing them such unhappiness, I felt distressed about both the deck and the neighbors. I did consider having it removed, but that would have been costly. Plus I still needed someplace for the family reunion.

I tried apologizing to my neighbors, but that didn’t seem to help. And I spent many hours in prayer about the situation, but didn’t seem to be getting any answers. I didn’t want to be willful and ignore the neighbors' concerns, and because the reunion was drawing nearer, I felt something had to be done to resolve the issue.

At this time, I also began to be bothered by a backache that almost completely immobilized me. Between the immobility and the situation with my neighbors, I was pretty miserable.

For a while, it seemed right to have the deck removed no matter how that would impact on the reunion. Then, as I thought further, it seemed better to do nothing at all.

I was really praying for a better understanding of Jesus’ instruction that we are to love our neighbors as ourselves, but I couldn’t hear what steps I should take. I wanted so much to please everyone, but I finally perceived this as a temptation that would keep me going in circles. I had to get clear about who I actually wanted to please—the neighbors, my relatives, myself?

I put a lot of prayer into answering this question, and as I considered Jesus' words further, I recalled that his comments had two parts. In response to a questioner, he said, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment. And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.”

Thinking about this passage from Mark’s Gospel, I recognized that the only one I really wanted to please was God, because Jesus’ said that we should love God with all our heart. Then what I needed to figure out was what God, not the neighbors or anyone else, wanted me to do.

As my thoughts focused more on God than on the problem, the solution was immediately clear—just as if a voice had spoken to me. The answer was to simply drop it and let God take care of the situation. I was finally able to give up the human will for things to work out a certain way and just turn everything over to God, divine Love. I knew that Love’s solution could only bless all concerned.

When I did that, not only was I free from anxiety over the situation, but the painful backache also disappeared quickly. I was so thankful that getting quiet in order to hear God’s word enabled me to know what to do.

As Isaiah so aptly put it: “Thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying, This is the way, walk ye in it, when ye turn to the right hand, and when ye turn to the left.”

What was even more interesting is that around this time my neighbors had a backyard party with a lot of guests. Somehow, this aroused in me the desire to have the deck removed so that they would no longer have to deal with bad feelings about it.

After the party, I called them to let them know my decision, but to my surprise they said that I shouldn’t do that. They said that not one of their guests had complained about the deck, and this had helped them to feel all right about the situation.

This was such a huge relief to me, and I thanked them sincerely. Since then, our relations are of a normal, friendly nature. And I’m again able to enjoy the deck and the opportunities it gives me to develop “the uplifted desires of the human heart.”

Listening to God:

Science and Health
89:20-21

King James Bible
Mark 12:31
Mark 12:30
Isa. 30:21