Where is my neighbor?

[Yes, and]

45 minutes ago, Sower said:

Done. I made my lengthy researched reply some time way back up stream but you seemed to have just disappeared. I checked and saw you online here but not responding to this OP at all. HUH.
I generally have no problem sticking to the OP. You will have less people wandering around creating other conversations had you responded just a little more timely. I offer my  apology non the less. Will not disturb you now in my room somewhere else as at your request. And have a great day....

Too true, it took me a while to get back to this, so in that respect it's totally understandable to see this go down a different path. I wasn't perturbed or upset when I asked you to "get a room," and like I said, "Please, though, stick around on this thread if you'd like to continue with the thrust of my initial post and questions! :-)"

I suppose it was my hope that my initial response to @jeremiah1five (in which I was perturbed, hence the "Grrr" at the end!) would have been interpreted as it was intended: "Completely missing the point. Go start a new thread if you want to."

And FWIW, I don't have lots of time on any given day to participate here, and add to that the fact that I both ponder what I want to say sometimes over the course of days at a time and then take a long time to write things out coherently (with lots of editing before I ever hit the "Submit Reply" button), it can very much look like I disappeared.

[jeremiah1five]

58 minutes ago, Michael37 said:

Look what verse popped into my mind:

Joh 5:39  “You search the Scriptures, because you think that in them you have eternal life; and these are they which testify about me.

And this one:

 

All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: 17 That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works. 2 Ti 3:16–17.

[Yes, and]

Second anecdote: earlier this year I became "friends" with a faithful brother in the Lord through this same mens group. I put "friends" in quotes to emphasize where the point or points of this anecdote. I do so not because he and I weren't friendly to each other. We were. It's not because he wasn't a solid man of faith. He was. And it's not because we didn't get along. We did. No, rather it is because of the effects of time and space on a very real and practical level, along with the forces of our culture we are discussing, which create this tremendous roadblock to anything approaching a true friendship. @Neighbor points to these forces in saying:

Quote

This thread triggered my own thinking toward what is a neighborhood today? Where is it that one might cloister? Is it even  physical in this age of cyber exchange with both physical exchange of goods and services, as well as the exchange of ideas and other non material things, including Christian message board exchanges?

PERHAPS today individuals take their own neighborhood with them, wherever they go. Each carries their neighborhood along in a cell phone or within a tablet with WIFI available most everywhere.  Well not so much in the very rural retreat available to me in the mountains, but otherwise I am connected, like it or not to the "neighborhood". And my neighbor can be next door or in lands that  used to be foreign. I say used to be because they are now very much closer reality that I deal with often to daily without even thinking of the individual(s) as being far away. They are close neighbors.

Perhaps also those that look isolated with cell phones in hand all the time are not separated but unable to separate, the cell phone being a placenta to the umbilical cord of cyber connectivity, that you and I are using this very moment on WCF. We are neighbors no matter where we are!

I would respond by saying that disembodiment and lack of physical presence is anything but a neighborhood. These forums exist in large part as a paltry replacement to true community (true communion.) Of course there's no doubt that a utilitarian value can be found in forums (and the "University of YouTube"). But I think we lie to ourselves—in part to ameliorate the pain of the loss of the neighborhood—in turning to these as substitutes for the blessings of physical presence.

Now did you see I wrote in past tense about my "friend"? For all I know this morning of Christmas Eve, he may have fallen asleep in Jesus sometime over the last 3 weeks. In the spring of this year, a few months after our friendship began, he was diagnosed with lymphoma, and over the summer and into the fall he went through various treatments, seemingly unsuccessful on the whole. Before he knew it was lymphoma, but feeling very ill, I and some folks from the mens group helped him and his family move from one place to another in our town. I also connected with him and his wife on occasion, but owing to his illness, time, and space, and the demands of our present life/culture, real connection was difficult to realize.

For one, we weren't true physical neighbors. His home is about a 17-minute drive from ours. And much of the time he was getting treated and in-patient at a hospital about three hours away. I drove there at one point in November to visit him, shortly after he had gone through a particularly nasty stretch. He cried when I entered his room, for no other reason than another human came to visit him in person.

In September, after a series of treatments at that distant hospital he was back home and was able to join the mens group one evening. Most of the discussion was his providing encouraging testimonies of the Lord's work in his life. At one point, however—and knowing of his involvement for more than a year with what is considered a great church in our town (large attendance, lots of small groups, supposedly good preaching, etc.)—I asked him whether he had made any actual friends there, or found any real community. He replied with a definite no, while also saying that yes, people in the church would bring meals to him and his family. He, too, has been painfully aware of the lack of real neighbors and neighborhood.

Now, mind you, he has lived for the most of his life in other countries. One of the places he found real community was in a small village in Albania, in part, he said, because all of life happened within walking distance.

That move we helped him with was into a townhouse neighborhood. There, he told us, he would sit outside his front door and try to engage his neighbors, to no effect. He is (or was) a friendly guy, make no mistake, and it grieved him as much as it does me this inability to connect even when one tries. The last series of contacts I had were text messages in which I was expecting the next message to be him telling me when he would be released from that distant hospital after another round of treatments to a local rehab facility. Then, radio silence. (My wife, incidentally, attempted to contact his wife in late November. No response.) So, hearing nothing, I stopped by their townhome about a week ago. No one was home (they still have two teen sons living at home). Outside the townhome was a group of three people stringing up Christmas lights. They said they knew him, lived a couple doors down, but they clearly didn't know anything about him.

 

[Neighbor]

Hmmm,  Just thinking on what  I might think of as the neighborhood.

Paul seems to have been very close to his neighbors at Rome, yet he was not there at the time. Was he not an important part of his neighborhood there?  How did he communicate with them, by messenger by written material -what if he had an iphone and a tablet and the internet like we do-How much bigger might his neighborhood, his close circle of friends to fellowship in Christ  with have been?

 I think of my own early on experience in internet Christian fellowship message board relationships -Ha!, why I have ended  up  re-married as result of it. Almost like  my first lifelong marriage to my immediate neighbor (Third household away from mine) some 61 years ago.

Both neighborhoods have turned out to have had very significant affect upon me.

Maybe a rethink of what constitutes a neighbor, Christian fellowship, and real relationships in general is in order. 

Are not at least some of the cyber relationships here developing into quite real neighborly, caring  ones? 

 

[Neighbor]

10 hours ago, Michael37 said:

Look what verse popped into my mind:

Joh 5:39  “You search the Scriptures, because you think that in them you have eternal life; and these are they which testify about me.

Hi, Interesting pop. Perhaps though there is a difference between a Bible searcher and a Bible scholar?

I, as one example, may search and search as well as pray and think, as I read and listen. But I am not a scholar! I do have to rely on scholars for  the transliterations I read and pray and think about.

 Yes I can look at Strong's, I can look at numerous commentaries, some even from scholars; but I cannot read to this day Hebrew nor Biblical Greek, and certainly not a bit of Aramaic.

Like King James I  do have to wait upon  committees of dedicated, but not inspired of God scholars to bring God's word to me even to this day.

 Now I do have God's awesome  protection and gift to me that of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, without which I would have not understanding no matter how much I may read  think  and pray.

Praise God for his mercy from everlasting to everlasting and because of  that mercy  the call to Yeshua by the Holy Spirit which I could not, on this side of sanity, refuse.

 

[RdJ]

I used to be friendly to my neighbour from upstairs. I have loads. I live in a flat. She would always complain and whine and wait for you to step in the elevator so you'd be trapped and she could go demand you keep the kids silent. We already were gone almost all day to the park, but I pay rent too. Why may Karen live there and I may not? And she was always ever home, not working. So one day a guy online said his antisocial neoghbours let their dog bark all day and he asked if he should let him out while they were at work and they barked at him, so he moved and I thought: hey antisocials have half the world. What a great idea. So the next time she trapped me in the elevator I put on my resting .. face and didn't say a word and for a few months she left me alone and then she said sorry and it was allfine again for years and then she started again and when I see them I walk the other way. I can see if the elevator comes from their place now, new one, so I don't step in. I forgive and bless and pray for them to get saved but I also pray that I won't see her anymore and haven't seen herfor almost a year. My kids are now teens and quiet. Last time she whined about the noise from closing the door. Just leave me alone. I don't care. I have to be friendly and calm and I am not when she irritates me, so I stay out of the way. I threw a Gospel in their mail box.

Once she also trapped the kids in the elevator and said they were allowed to sing and play the flute. My son was so fed upfrom the ssssht ssshtsssht and I had a big fatzo house, but had to move to a flat cause my ex simply moved and shut up your kids all day for the whine neighbour, so one evening I said go ahead and he screamed really loud a song he made himself called shut up now. I filmed it. It's hilarious.

Edited December 24, 2023 by Renskedejonge

[Sower]

1 hour ago, Neighbor said:

Hmmm,  Just thinking on what  I might think of as the neighborhood.

"Neighborhood; the area surrounding a particular place, person, or object"

National Geographic.
"A neighborhood is an area where people live and interact with one another. Neighborhoods tend to have their own identity, or "feel" based on the people who live there and the places nearby. Residents may have similar types of families, incomes, and education levels. Neighborhoods can include restaurants, bookstores, and parks.

Neighborhoods often have fuzzy geographical boundaries, so sometimes it's difficult to tell where one starts and another ends. Major streets often act as logical boundaries, but people usually define a neighborhood by its characteristics.

Neighborhoods are usually mentioned in terms of big cities, but suburban or rural areas also have neighborhoods. Suburban neighborhoods tend to have larger homes and more families than urban neighborhoods. Neighborhood residents generally have similar incomes, as well as similar social characteristics such as education level, housing preference, and sense of public order.

Sometimes, the dominant ethnicity in a neighborhood defines its character. People, especially recent immigrants to a new country, will often cluster near others with the same cultural heritage. In the United States, you can find them in neighborhoods such as Little Italy and Chinatown, names shared by neighborhoods in several cities. Harlem is a predominantly African American neighborhood in New York City, New York. In Los Angeles, California, Chinatown is joined by Little Saigon, which includes immigrants from Vietnam. In Minneapolis, Minnesota, the Little Mogadishu neighborhood is defined by immigrants from Somalia.

When people band together in this way, it strengthens their sense of community and preserves cultural traditions. Residents benefit from nearby relatives and a common language, as well as stores and services geared to their needs. They are close to institutions important to them, such as churches and clubs. Unlike neighborhoods, ghettos and barrios have historically been areas where ethnic groups were forced to live.

 

**(The screen at the desk or in your hand, social media, is not a neighborhood)**

[Yes, and]

2 hours ago, Renskedejonge said:

I used to be friendly to my neighbour from upstairs. I have loads. I live in a flat. She would always complain and whine and wait for you to step in the elevator so you'd be trapped and she could go demand you keep the kids silent. We already were gone almost all day to the park, but I pay rent too. Why may Karen live there and I may not? And she was always ever home, not working. So one day a guy online said his antisocial neoghbours let their dog bark all day and he asked if he should let him out while they were at work and they barked at him, so he moved and I thought: hey antisocials have half the world. What a great idea. So the next time she trapped me in the elevator I put on my resting .. face and didn't say a word and for a few months she left me alone and then she said sorry and it was allfine again for years and then she started again and when I see them I walk the other way. I can see if the elevator comes from their place now, new one, so I don't step in. I forgive and bless and pray for them to get saved but I also pray that I won't see her anymore and haven't seen herfor almost a year. My kids are now teens and quiet. Last time she whined about the noise from closing the door. Just leave me alone. I don't care. I have to be friendly and calm and I am not when she irritates me, so I stay out of the way. I threw a Gospel in their mail box.

Once she also trapped the kids in the elevator and said they were allowed to sing and play the flute. My son was so fed upfrom the ssssht ssshtsssht and I had a big fatzo house, but had to move to a flat cause my ex simply moved and shut up your kids all day for the whine neighbour, so one evening I said go ahead and he screamed really loud a song he made himself called shut up now. I filmed it. It's hilarious.

Hi, @Renskedejonge! Would you be willing to edit your last paragraph a tad for a little more clarity? Was "ssssht ssshtsssht" meant to be a polite way to say the s-word or did it mean something else? Whose house is big and fatzo? Who moved? Who sang? And did you post the video on YT or elsewhere such that we could see it (even if it's in Dutch—which I assume given your screen name and location. FWIW I lived in Belgium for 5 months in '93-'94).

I think next time I post I will respond to your post more with the topic at hand in mind, because it raises a major aspect of my inquiry which @jeremiah1five's posts in this thread (unwittingly?) raise. It's just that his (her?) posts, being immediately dismissive and preachy, failed to further the topic appropriately.

[Michael37]

2 hours ago, Sower said:

"Neighborhood; the area surrounding a particular place, person, or object"

National Geographic.
"A neighborhood is an area where people live and interact with one another. Neighborhoods tend to have their own identity, or "feel" based on the people who live there and the places nearby. Residents may have similar types of families, incomes, and education levels. Neighborhoods can include restaurants, bookstores, and parks.

Neighborhoods often have fuzzy geographical boundaries, so sometimes it's difficult to tell where one starts and another ends. Major streets often act as logical boundaries, but people usually define a neighborhood by its characteristics.

Neighborhoods are usually mentioned in terms of big cities, but suburban or rural areas also have neighborhoods. Suburban neighborhoods tend to have larger homes and more families than urban neighborhoods. Neighborhood residents generally have similar incomes, as well as similar social characteristics such as education level, housing preference, and sense of public order.

Sometimes, the dominant ethnicity in a neighborhood defines its character. People, especially recent immigrants to a new country, will often cluster near others with the same cultural heritage. In the United States, you can find them in neighborhoods such as Little Italy and Chinatown, names shared by neighborhoods in several cities. Harlem is a predominantly African American neighborhood in New York City, New York. In Los Angeles, California, Chinatown is joined by Little Saigon, which includes immigrants from Vietnam. In Minneapolis, Minnesota, the Little Mogadishu neighborhood is defined by immigrants from Somalia.

When people band together in this way, it strengthens their sense of community and preserves cultural traditions. Residents benefit from nearby relatives and a common language, as well as stores and services geared to their needs. They are close to institutions important to them, such as churches and clubs. Unlike neighborhoods, ghettos and barrios have historically been areas where ethnic groups were forced to live.

 

**(The screen at the desk or in your hand, social media, is not a neighborhood)**

We have a social media site called "Neighbourly" . It is owned and operated by a large news publisher as an extension of the various publications it distributes. It is quite pedestrian but useful nonetheless.

[Neighbor]

3 hours ago, Sower said:

**(The screen at the desk or in your hand, social media, is not a neighborhood)**

Sure it is for it is not where the physical body may be confined be but the spirit. Even the "old neighborhood" is still the neighborhood.

My physical locale and my neighborhood have little commonness to them. My neighborhood is where God places my heart, mind and spirit, to be. 

I need not legs that function nor tongue that speaks  in order to have neighbors to fellowship with  under our common lordship of Jesus. Why I don't even need face time, nor same time. I can leave message and read message and be with neighbors around the world in any time zone. We are not limited in our neighborly fellowship to time at all. Time has become somewhat irrelevant.

 Just a little while back in time a man named Fred McFeely Rogers, a  Presbyterian minister, broke through the restrains of locale and invited all to be his neighbor. He did so with a gentle manner, known to most of us as  Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, which ran from 1968 to 2001.  Thinking upon it he has transcended even the barrier of time as our neighbor. His kind neighborly manner lives on ; It's a beautiful day in this neighborhood,
A beautiful day for a neighbor,
Would you be mine?
Could you be mine?

It's a neighborly day in this beautywood,
A neighborly day for a beauty,
Would you be mine?
Could you be mine?

I have always wanted to have a neighbor just like you,
I've always wanted to live in a neighborhood with you.

So let's make the most of this beautiful day,
Since we're together, we might as well say,
Would you be mine?
Could you be mine?
Won't you be my neighbor?

Won't you please,
Won't you please,
Please won't you be my neighbor?

Hi television neighbor, I'm glad we're together again....


Credit; lyricsondemand