Maybe the hope for our world all finally comes down to our
neighborhoods and our neighbors.
Say the word "neighborhood" and I grow nostalgic
for the tidy collection of homes and families and streets where I grew up.
Beach Street, a collection of modest Capes and starter homes on a thoroughfare
six houses down from Wollaston Beach, on Boston's South Shore. Two streets away
from my Aunt and Uncle and four cousins. A half mile away from my Grandparents.
When I return to that neighborhood now it feels small but in
the eyes and memory of a little boy it was huge. It was home. It was a place for
us children to roam in safety, aware that we were watched over by a
neighborhood full of Moms and Dads. If we got out of line or yelled too loud,
if we ran across the street without looking, we were called out.
We were known. We were seen. We were cared for in that
neighborhood.
We played kick the can in the street and had crab apple
fights in tree filled backyards. We climbed over a chain link fence into the
bowling alley parking lot to ride our bikes and play wiffle ball until the
summer sun went down. And then at day's
end there was the sing song sound of parents calling out from back doors, to round
us kids up for supper. That was our neighborhood soundtrack.
That was our
neighborhood.
I've lived in some not so great neighborly neighborhoods too,
places of anonymity where I knew no one and no one knew me either, beyond a
quick wave. Enclaves where practically the only interaction I might have with a
neighbor was a stare down contest to secure that last on street parking spot. I've
lived in a cramped apartment building and where I felt alone, even though I was
surrounded on all sides by "neighbors". I now live in a neighborhood
where we do know each other, a place where in a blizzard or a blackout I know I
could turn to a neighbor and absolutely, they would help me and I would help
them.
And why? It's our neighborhood. A real place in the real
world, with a physical address and clear boundaries and a clear sense that we
are all in this together.
This day I've been thinking a lot about one particular American
neighborhood, a tight knit city district called Squirrel Hill in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Before last Saturday it was most well known as the place where Mister Rodgers
grew up. Now its known as the location
of a deadly massacre and act of domestic terrorism, the worst and most violent
act of anti-Semitism in American history, the place where eleven innocent
synagogue attendees, neighbors, were gunned down as they worshipped their God
on the Sabbath.
Those folks were neighbors, good neighbors. They knew each
other well. Their kids went to Hebrew
classes together, played baseball together, grew up together. The neighborhood
is known as a historic Jewish community but it is a wider neighborhood too: of
Catholics and Protestants, of blue and white collar, of newcomer and longtime
resident. Folks there overwhelmingly
love their neighborhood for the same reasons all of us cherish the places we claim
as our place in this world.
It's home. It's our
neighborhood.
So now neighbors from around the United States are trying to help those
neighbors in need, trying to push back against evil, with large and small acts
of kindness. To declare, "This is our neighborhood too. These are our
neighbors." Like Muslims neighbors who through the Islamic Center of
Pittsburgh and the nationwide Muslim charity Celebrate Mercy, have raised more
than $125,000 to help their Jewish neighbors in Squirrel Hill. The funds will
help pay for funeral services, medical bills, and other needs in this awful
time.
When a tragedy like the shooting at the Tree of Life
synagogue happens, it is so hard to find any hope, to look for the light in the
darkest of days. As the dead are
remembered and buried. As that
neighborhood will never be the same again.
Yet hope finally is all that we have as humans, as fellow
children of God, in the face of hatred and bias. And so I for one put my hope
and faith in neighborhoods and neighbors, in cherished places like Squirrel
Hill. I have to because finally,
neighborhoods are where we humans live and die, where we grow up, where we know
love, where our families settle, where we worship our God and where we find a
place to stand in this sometimes crazed and violent world.
If this world is to change for the good, if bloodshed is to
give way to shalom, if bigotry is to be defeated by love, it will all begin in
our neighborhoods and with our neighbors.
Next door. Around the corner. Across the street.
Love thy neighbor. Love thy neighborhoods too. And say a
prayer for Squirrel Hill.
