An unexpected telephone call yesterday afternoon was music to my ears. Some friends who live in an adjacent neighborhood were riding their minibikes through the neighborhood and called to ask if they could stop for a brief visit. Absolutely was my response and by the time I got from upstairs to downstairs, they were parking their motorized bikes on the circle drive.
It was a nice visit that they attempted to abbreviate a couple of times before we relented and bid them farewell. They didn’t want to bother us. The way I see it, friendship is a gift. It is never a bother.
Unless it is the middle of the night and we are sleeping, the ringing of the doorbell is the only advance notice that we need. It would be a rare exception that I couldn’t press the pause button on whatever I was doing to visit with friends.
When I was a kid, all you had to do was knock on a door and ask if a friend could come outside to play. How did we gravitate to a place where we calendar visits at least a week in advance and forfeit the concept of impromptu?
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t object to planning things in advance, but I also like the unexpected joy of connecting with friends when the privilege isn’t planned or anticipated. I call that a gift.
It is not rude to ring the doorbell of a friend without telephoning in advance to ask permission. If we are friends, you innately have permission. I previously had a next-door neighbor who would always call to ask if we were open to an unannounced hospitality check? I don’t recall that I ever said no.
In fact, we cut a hole in the fence between us to make access easier. It didn’t come with the caveat that you have to call first, but it generally played itself out that way.
I’ve heard that fences make good neighbors. I beg to question that idea. Unless my neighbor has an outside dog that wants a part of my leg for breakfast, I don’t need a barrier between my house and the next-door neighbor.
I know people (even Christian people) who processed the book Boundaries and thought it was the best thing since homemade bread. It reportedly “explains, with the help of modern psychology and Christian ideals, how to improve your mental health and personal growth by establishing guidelines for self-care that include saying no more often and standing firm in your decisions rather than letting people walk all over you.”
I guess balance is the issue, but I’m not buying it! Christ lived his life with an openness to unexpected intrusions and Scripture is filled with miracles performed, lives restored and friendships forged. The concept of Divine appointments removes barriers rather than erecting them.
The wisdom of C.S. Lewis in his book “The Four Loves” is food for thought: “In friendship…we think we have chosen our peers. In reality a few years’ difference in the dates of our births, a few more miles between certain houses, the choice of one university instead of another…the accident of a topic being raised or not raised at a first meeting–any of these chances might have kept us apart. But, for a Christian, there are, strictly speaking no chances. A secret master of ceremonies has been at work. Christ, who said to the disciples, ‘Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you,’ can truly say to every group of Christian friends, ‘Ye have not chosen one another but I have chosen you for one another.’ The friendship is not a reward for our discriminating and good taste in finding one another out. It is the instrument by which God reveals to each of us the beauties of others.”
All My Best!
Don
Carpe Diem 