Neighbours - To Know and Be Known

So after my Tuesday haircut the week turned a bit wonky. I mean it took turns that I wasn't expecting. I wrote earlier about how the honeymoon phase was over for us and how we struggled a bit being here. But as time went on, we made connections and felt more at home here. We have found a church, we found a homegroup, we even found friends to go for coffee with and babysit our kids. What I realized this week is that I am dealing with the disappointment and consequences of not being more connected with my neighbours. I thought that when we moved into the courtyard, we would be getting together with people, sharing meals and just getting into each other's lives. In fact to be honest I was thinking that we'd all be too close and that extrovert-I-love-people-me would get an overdose of fellowship. But it hasn't been like that and so even though in the last few days we've had a courtyard potluck and a girls pampering afternoon, there hasn't been a deliberate attempt at neighbourly relationships.

And of course one place that should have been easy to make relationships is with the other families here in the court. We all have children the same age, and there are two couples that are going to be starting their families in a few short months. Unfortunately, we haven't made a connection over the last 3 months as families. When Carl and I got here we invited people over, shared more than just surface talk, and tried to get to know our neighbours and we were hoping for similar invitations from other residents in the court. I have to make one more admission; I didn't want to be all pastoral and make my rounds to each apartment, week after week. I wanted others to make an effort too since I was the new kid on the block, but it didn't really happen.

This week all the courtyard kids were fighting more and getting onto each other's nerves. Carl and I had noticed there had been more scuffles, so we'd been pretty proactive about being outside and helping all the kids learn how to resolve conflict. I wanted our kids to have a good place to play with friends, and I was getting tired of all the court kids' fussing, tattling and tears. But an incident happened (of course the time when Carl and I weren't watching) and another parent came over to discuss it a few hours later.

I think after everything was said and done I was upset at how the incident was handled. First, I felt strange attempting to work something out with a family that we really don't know; by this time we should have been friends and have had a context to work within. Second, I took the keep-the-peace-route instead of dealing with the cause of the problem. And third, I was angry at the fact that Carl and I had been out watching the kids and we knew that this incident was a reaction to situations that had been happening all week. Okay and so there's a fourth. I was mad at myself that I didn't deal with the situations earlier in the week, possibly preventing the big one. Go figure, another example my conflict dodging.

I never thought that I would have to deal with something like this. I assumed that once Joel made friends in school and headed over to his friends' house, I would get to know the parents well, we would talk, and that situations like this would be avoided. I guess coming here I assumed that we would get close to the other families and when that didn't happen (and I am disappointed about that), I just resigned myself to the fact that it would make no difference. But it has and now I'm not sure what to do with it.

I could react like a Mother Bear all the time. I could just throw up my hands and let the kids go at it. I could be out there policing all the time. Or I could take the more difficult road and get to know the parents and despite cultural differences, try and work out a plan or strategy. Oh community can be so hard...