@Pontifex Ponderings: Is It a Beautiful Day in Your Neighborhood?

I’ve decided to start a little series here on the blog where I share my first impressions of our Holy Father, Pope Francis’ amazing tweets. For today, he shared:

Sometimes it is possible to live without knowing our neighbours: this is not Christian.

— Pope Francis (@Pontifex) September 14, 2013

I have to share that as I sit in my section of suburbia on this Saturday morning, my initial reaction to this tweet was, “Oh crud!”

I’ve lived in my current house for twelve years. In that time, I have spoken to my next door neighbor a total of one time. The interaction happened shortly after we moved in, when I went next door to introduce myself. Greeted with very little conversation, I said goodbye and haven’t been back since. We live in a sort of weird situation where our comings and goings don’t have us running into one another. If I’m being completely honest, I actually don’t even know what the elderly couple who live next door look like today. I could run into them in the market and not even recognize them. Maybe I have…

That’s sad. 

I can read the tweet above and justify my behavior by thinking, “He’s not really talking about our neighbors who live next door, right?! He sort of means ‘neighbor’ in a more generic way…”

But in this case, I think it’s not so easy to squirm out of the message he’s delivering. Looks like I need to pay another visit, and get busy better knowing — and serving — my neighbors.

A question for you: Do you know your neighbors?