The key word, and the operative word, is love. That's all there is to it. Not just loving the people in Colombia, my host, his family, friends and the people on the street. Not just loving the people in Costa Rica, not just the people surrounding me in the airports and on the airplanes, and not just the people that surround me here where I live. But to live in such a state of loving awareness as to find everyone touching my life somehow.
The place where this is most difficult is in the place where I live. Some of my neighbours are difficult. There is the mentally ill man across the hall who was sneezing openly from his open door last week, and once was quite scary and threatening towards me when he was going through a particularly bad time. The woman next door to him is really a friendly and lovely person, but she loves to entertain and I had to snitch on her twice to management about her lack of safe distancing during this pandemic crisis. Further down the hall there is a Middle Eastern fellow, apparently traumatized, who has also been on occasion aggressive and difficult. We actually have grown to like each other.
There is also the woman next door, a very kind and friendly soul, but seems rather unbalanced. Last night I checked with a friend of hers who says she lives in a shelter, who was knocking on her apartment door for about fifteen minutes. Since she obviously got in with help from someone, and that we are simply not having visitors because of the pandemic, and it was late in the evening and the noise they were making was rather irritating, I called security, and sent an email to management.
I don't enjoy ratting on my neighbours. I also do not want to see the corvid 19 virus spread through my building like wildfire. I also commend my neighbour that she wants to befriend and support someone who is even more vulnerable than she or I, since we have the good fortune of living in affordable housing. I am challenged and a bit discouraged about how difficult it is to transfer my love from Colombia to Vancouver, though it also appears to be happening, but slowly. I am also still really fed up with people at my church. It is partly the lack of love, but this could also be from the frustration of love.
I cannot just go out there and rescue everyone. I have tried this in the past and the cost was far too great. I also see my next door neighbour trying to do the same. Laudable. But ultimately foolish and wrong-headed. But I have to do something. I am trying to start by not judging the people who surround me. This can be supremely difficult, because those are the most difficult people to safely distance ourselves from, pandemic or no pandemic. Not everyone coexists easily, and with some who are particularly close, physically that is, one can often do little better than tolerate anc cope. But I want to do better than this, also factoring in that my neighbours also have me to cope with.
There are also the people begging on the sidewalks. Some are very close, just outside the front door. I still hold to my policy of not giving money to panhandlers that operate within a three block radius of where I live. It can get too problematic, and at times dangerous. But I still try to acknowledge them, say hi, and where possible, share food with some of them, though this doesn't happen often.
Concerning people in my church, they are so blinded by their privilege that it is impossible to communicate with some of them, including one who has become a good friend. She just doesn't get it. But I have other friends in church as well, and shouldn't I love them as well as the street people of Colombia?
Well, yes. But love is difficult. Who ever said that it was going to be easy? So much for dumb questions, Gentle Reader.
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