Good morning… how are you? Hey, good to see you!
It’s the little things that make life run more smoothly.
Right now when the tenor of discourse is ugly, it’s fairly easy to do some little things that turn that around.
Since time immemorial (or as long as I remember) when your driving along a country road, you greet your neighbor. Now this means that you’re traveling slowly enough to notice that your neighbors (and by neighbor, I mean everyone you meet) are driving in the opposite direction. You lift your hand off the wheel, Howdy!
It changes how you see each other. If we’re neighbors who greet one another and are friendly, then we’re not slamming around at one another on FB. Hello!
We become people to one another. We become neighbors in fact and not just proximity. Looks like a great day.
We worry about whether the fields are wet enough or have enough sun to grow the crops that will make their way to our table. Glad we got that gentle rain, we needed it.
I’m fed up with how people’s FB style bleeds over into life. I’m fed up with having my patriotism questioned because I think differently than you do. That’s what makes us who we are over here. I heard your wife was in the hospital, everything ok?
Thinking differently doesn’t preclude being good neighbors.
Being neighborly means we worry about the ugly things, racism, sexism, homophobia, religious differences because we are neighbors. Look how that baby’s growing!
The anger, killing, trash-talking is not a road we want to go down. We want to drive the road where you lift your hand in greeting to everyone you meet. There’s a whole lot of Peace in something as simple as greeting, something as simple as a wave. Hello. How are you? It’s good to see you. Have a great day.
Do something neighborly, will you? It adds a lot to Peace. Especially when you step outside your comfort zone and realize everyone wants to be seen. Everyone wants to be greeted as a friend. Peace.
