WE HAD BEEN neighbors for many years. He had his quirks and wasn't very social, but we'd occasionally shared a meal together, worked on joint projects, greeted each other at the mailbox, and chatted on the street in front of our homes. He'd even called on me when he'd faced some serious family issues.

Suddenly, though, all that changed. I had been working on a drainage pipe problem out in front of our house that threatened to wash out a hillside and roadbed. My neighbor's abandoned truck was parked over the storm drain I needed to access in order to make the repairs, but he ignored my repeated requests to move it. Finally, after several days, I was at my wit's end, and I asked a passing sheriff on the street if he could help with the dilemma. The sheriff "yellow tagged" the vehicle, which required my neighbor to move his truck within 72 hours or it would be towed away.

Well, when he saw that yellow tag, my neighbor became incensed. He yelled and cursed at me—and soon had some men pull the nonfunctioning truck over in front of our house, announcing that from then on that space was permanently his to park all his vehicles for as long as he wanted.

My wife and I were dumbfounded. We'd never encountered the hatred and vengeance this man was directing at us. When other neighbors informed us that this man had a past history of violence and alcohol abuse—and that he had quite a collection of firearms—we were no longer just angry. We were afraid.

This neighbor's unsightly trucks remained parked in front of our house. Guests and tradespeople had to park elsewhere. It got to the point where my wife and I began to blame each other for provoking the confrontation in the first place. We even thought about moving from the home and neighborhood we'd loved for over 30 years.

I knew from experience that prayer is the only way to bring about a harmonious, permanent, healing solution. So I prayed to see both my neighbor and myself in a clearer light, a spiritual light, rather than as two adversaries confronting each other in hatred and retaliation.

Then, I recalled an incident that had occurred several years before this, one that was almost identical to the one confronting me. A woman had phoned me at midnight for help through prayer. She explained that she was a widow, living alone, except for her companion, a little gray schnauzer. She had been having ongoing trouble with a man living next door, whose description matched my own neighbor. He had parked his dump truck so that it completely blocked her driveway, and he'd refused to move it. In desperation, she'd called the police, who made him move his truck. After she'd called in the police, he began to curse and threaten her. The next day her dog ate some meat he'd thrown into her yard and went into convulsions. She'd rushed him to the vet, who confirmed that the dog had been poisoned. All he could do, he said, was give the dog a shot to kill the pain. He told her the dog wouldn't survive the night.

It was at this point that she called me—with her dog lying almost lifeless at her feet. What came to me to ask this woman was how she would feel if her neighbor suddenly moved away—and Christ Jesus moved in next door. She liked that idea very much. Then I asked her what qualities Jesus would have that would make him a good neighbor. She said something along these lines: "Well, Jesus would be clean. That man is filthy. Also, he would be kind. He wouldn't hurt anyone. And he would be considerate of the feelings of others."

Clearly the woman's thought was moving in a more spiritual direction. I asked her to think about all the loving qualities Jesus had expressed, which she could expect to see in all children of God, her neighbor included. I told her that I would pray for her along the same lines.

At 7:00 the next morning, the woman called to report that her dog had completely recovered. His nose was cool and wet, and he'd just eaten his breakfast. She even sent me a photo of him with a ribbon around his neck. She also said that she didn't feel any more animosity toward her neighbor. The hatred and revenge had been replaced with the Christlike understanding of this man, making healing inevitable.

As this incident came to my thought, I realized I needed to practice what I'd preached. I saw that I, too, had been angry, self-righteous, even vengeful. And I knew these qualities weren't at all what I wanted to associate with myself. I had also been feeling pretty smug about the street in front of our home; I'd taken it upon myself to maintain it by making repairs and organizing for it to be paved. And I realized that in the process, I had developed a proprietary attitude toward the road and a certain feeling of ownership. In prayer I gradually realized that this was really God's street—that is, it was populated by His sons and daughters, all equally loved and loveable, considerate and cooperative in His sight. I perceived the traffic on the street not as made up of random people and automobiles, but as representing God-inspired thoughts of kindness, graciousness, justice, compassion, and forgiveness, in which I was included.

As I prayed, it was as if a mental "moving truck" carried off a big load of self-centered thinking. I realized that the outrage and fear that had paralyzed my wife and me, could be dealt with from within my own thinking. It wasn't my neighbor who needed to leave, but rather my false sense of who my neighbor was—and even who I was. This statement from Science and Health aided the healing process: "In patient obedience to a patient God, let us labor to dissolve with the universal solvent ofLove the adamant of error,—self-will, self-justification, and self-love,—which wars against spirituality and is the law of sin and death" (p. 242). My wife and I agreed that we would look at this higher sense of neighborliness and celebrate it as part of our daily worship.

With prayer, our thoughts turned around. We began sleeping better at night and didn't rush out each morning to see if "the truck" was still there. We no longer felt afraid—and we stopped talking about moving.

My neighbor's truck is still parked out in front of our home, but the huge obstacle it represented—revenge and anger—has dissolved. Instead, I like to think of my street as founded on the bedrock of Christ, Truth, where nothing can move in to destroy my peaceful view of my neighbor, of myself—or of life itself. My prosperity and peace don't depend on outside circumstances, but on the very thoughts I build my life upon. This Bible verse reinforces that fact: "Thus shall ye say to him that liveth in prosperity, Peace be both to thee, and peace be to thine house, and peace be unto all that thou hast" (I Sam. 25:6). This is the promise that I now know belongs to our street. |css