sufficient

I am a hypocrite

We joke at school that I have the word "sucker" plastered across my forehead because I have trouble saying "no" when people ask me to be on committees. Its seems more appropriate to me that I should have "hypocrite" plastered across my forehead.

I am a Christian. I know that the second greatest commandment is to love your neighbor as yourself. I feel like I have a pretty good handle on what that really means, at least intellectually. And, in my arrogance, I usually think that I have a pretty good handle on the daily living out of loving my neighbor. "Certainly better than most people," I think to myself. "I teach in a public school- now that's really loving my neighbor," arrogant me proclaims.

This weekend, a friend shared with me how much a particular pastor had impacted and furthered her thinking about loving her neighbor. Because of his teaching, she now knows her neighbors and invites them into her home. "That's so awesome," I thought to myself. "I want to do that when I live in a real neighborhood!" As if the people living in my apartment complex don't qualify as my neighbors.

Then today, in house-hunting with my future roommates, we looked around intown, SES and racially diverse neighborhoods. I thought, "This is where I've wanted to live. This is the city. This is a place where I can really love my neighbors!"

Tonight, back at my apartment complex, I played tennis. An older man stood watching us play and began asking if we would have any interest in playing with him some other time. We averted our eyes from him and each other and mumbled answers to decline. He persisted. We declined. He shuffled off.

I have seen this man before in the parking lot. Something was going on with my car and he tried to help me out. I was a little weirded out by him, but he was just trying to be helpful. And tonight, he tried to be my neighbor. He didn't specifically ask me to play, but I just stood there, silent, awkward, not sure what to do.

Except that I was sure what to do. I knew this was just a lonely old man who was looking for someone to be his neighbor. I knew I should say "I'll play with you." But I am a hypocrite.

posted by CP @ 9:32 PM 1 thoughts