I know in Texas we’re supposed to be neighborly and I should be sad there’s a for sale sign in their yard, but I’m not. I tried with them, I really did, at least for a little while –I brought them cookies when they moved in– but we weren’t a good fit. Our kids went to different schools, there was a cultural divide, and more importantly, we had a trash barrier.
In seven years, I don’t think they ever used a proper black trash bag for their trash. Walmart plastic baggies, yes. Open boxes, yes. Garbage piled into a heap sans container of any kind, yes.
I’m not sure they know what day is trash day. Trash appears behind their house randomly, like a vacancy sign for rats or an all-you-can-eat buffet for raccoons. (Okay, I’ve never seen a raccoon, but I can attest to the rats).
I hardly know them and their five (six?) kids, but I do know some things about them: they like take-out pizza, Styrofoam and saving money on garbage bags. Sure, they might remember me as the crazy neighbor who had a panic attack in her driveway, but I will always remember them as the neighbors who let their trash blow into our yard.
Trash came between us. At this point, I could probably analogize to how we all let “emotional trash” come between us and the people in our lives. But that would be so boring, and really, I bet you’ve read something like that in a forward or Facebook post. Maybe even snickered before you hit “delete.”
So let’s go somewhere different with this story. A few days after the for sale sign appeared, I drove in from the gym, feelin’ good ‘cause I’d just been at the gym, when I saw two different heaps of dirty, nasty trash in the alley behind our home. One, behind my fence and the second, next to my green cylinder thingy (aka property of Time Warner Cable). Only today the green cylinder wasn’t tipped at its regular forty-five degree angle, the unfortunate consequence of my driving skills. Today the cylinder was completely obliterated, the three-quarter inch plastic cracked and dispersed among the second trash pile. And it wasn’t even my fault.
I wanted to blame the neighbors for the mess, I really did. But the empty bag of chocolate chips, banana peels and baked potato skins testified that the trash was mine. I’m no detective, but maybe destroyed green cylinder + trash in the alley, on trash day no less, means that it’s the garbage men’s, err… garbage persons’, umm… sanitation saints’ fault? As long as it’s not my fault, I’m good with that. Some days I just have so much fault piled up on me I can’t feel God’s grace, and if I can imagine for a minute that there’s a mess I’m not responsible for, well, I’m happy.
Except that I was the one out there cleaning up the trash. Picking up used paper towels, discolored q-tips and sticky granola wrappers. The moral to this story is that there’s always going to be trash in life we have to pick up. Sometimes it will be someone else’s. Sometimes it will be ours. But it will always be there. No move will ever change that.
The trouble comes not from the trash, but from not feeling God’s grace. Under that grace, it doesn’t matter if trash is there or not.
So far our neighbors haven’t had a single showing. They might not move after all. But maybe, if they stick around, when I see their trash blowing onto my lawn, I’ll remember that moving isn’t the answer. Grace is (and a thick pair of gloves).
In seven years, I don’t think they ever used a proper black trash bag for their trash. Walmart plastic baggies, yes. Open boxes, yes. Garbage piled into a heap sans container of any kind, yes.
I’m not sure they know what day is trash day. Trash appears behind their house randomly, like a vacancy sign for rats or an all-you-can-eat buffet for raccoons. (Okay, I’ve never seen a raccoon, but I can attest to the rats).
I hardly know them and their five (six?) kids, but I do know some things about them: they like take-out pizza, Styrofoam and saving money on garbage bags. Sure, they might remember me as the crazy neighbor who had a panic attack in her driveway, but I will always remember them as the neighbors who let their trash blow into our yard.
Trash came between us. At this point, I could probably analogize to how we all let “emotional trash” come between us and the people in our lives. But that would be so boring, and really, I bet you’ve read something like that in a forward or Facebook post. Maybe even snickered before you hit “delete.”
So let’s go somewhere different with this story. A few days after the for sale sign appeared, I drove in from the gym, feelin’ good ‘cause I’d just been at the gym, when I saw two different heaps of dirty, nasty trash in the alley behind our home. One, behind my fence and the second, next to my green cylinder thingy (aka property of Time Warner Cable). Only today the green cylinder wasn’t tipped at its regular forty-five degree angle, the unfortunate consequence of my driving skills. Today the cylinder was completely obliterated, the three-quarter inch plastic cracked and dispersed among the second trash pile. And it wasn’t even my fault.
I wanted to blame the neighbors for the mess, I really did. But the empty bag of chocolate chips, banana peels and baked potato skins testified that the trash was mine. I’m no detective, but maybe destroyed green cylinder + trash in the alley, on trash day no less, means that it’s the garbage men’s, err… garbage persons’, umm… sanitation saints’ fault? As long as it’s not my fault, I’m good with that. Some days I just have so much fault piled up on me I can’t feel God’s grace, and if I can imagine for a minute that there’s a mess I’m not responsible for, well, I’m happy.
Except that I was the one out there cleaning up the trash. Picking up used paper towels, discolored q-tips and sticky granola wrappers. The moral to this story is that there’s always going to be trash in life we have to pick up. Sometimes it will be someone else’s. Sometimes it will be ours. But it will always be there. No move will ever change that.
The trouble comes not from the trash, but from not feeling God’s grace. Under that grace, it doesn’t matter if trash is there or not.
So far our neighbors haven’t had a single showing. They might not move after all. But maybe, if they stick around, when I see their trash blowing onto my lawn, I’ll remember that moving isn’t the answer. Grace is (and a thick pair of gloves).
The LORD'S lovingkindnesses indeed never cease,
For His compassions never fail.
They are new every morning;
For His compassions never fail.
They are new every morning;
Lam 3:22-23a
