Megan Jackson's Blog
Thoughts on Neighbors, Friends, and Bridges. / 02.14.10, 11:56 AM
I wrote this while brainstorming for a newsletter, but it was a bit too long-winded for that. And while I would gladly write newsletters that were three, four, five, or sixty-five pages long, I figured I would condense my material and blog it instead. I’m a terrible blogger anyway, and I need to do it more… especially now that I know people actually read this stuff. Here’s what I wrote:
Neighbors became our friends in the first few months of Mission Year; I have realized that they are now my family, the people I rely on and the people for whom I would do much. These relationships are totally mysterious to me, because while they are basically the entire point of Mission Year (I should have seen them coming) they don’t appear to make sense. Many of my friendships here in Philadelphia and in Logan are with women who are in a different age bracket than me. We have had radically different life experiences and are currently worried about very different things. (Me: I can’t figure out how to make a decent pot of rice. Her: the care of a grandchild. And the list of different concerns goes on.) While I have mostly only known the daily life of suburbia, the majority of my new friends have lived their whole lives in urban Philadelphia. We may both be Christians, but have worshipped in very different churches.
And yet – here is the mystery – these relationships exist, and actually have flourished. It was so much simpler for me to build friendships with people who were so like me in experience and age, in race, in religion, in musical taste, in education, in socioeconomic status. But my experience this year has changed my definition of friendship. While I previously looked for commonalities that could provide bridges from me to a person without much effort on my part (You love said obscure Indie band? I love them! Let’s be friends) I have been pushed to become a bridge builder, someone who reaches across the awkward gap (and it often is awkward) to communicate Namaste to my neighbor, to say the God who dwells in me recognizes the God who dwells in you, and I choose to love you despite myself. It is incredible to realize that the differences that once looked like insurmountable obstacles to a friendship are actually just creases in the fabric into which we both are woven. I learn about what it is to be a human and a child of God from these relationships, and that is a beautiful and necessary thing.
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MJ,
I hear the snow is sticking…you could take up cross country skiing…try out for the olympics….
I enjoy hearing about the difference in perspective in interacting with older people. Spring is coming…you can make it.
By Levi / Mar 3, 10:59 PM / #