My Neighbors—Down Under

~ by Roy Naden, an author and Professor Emeritus (Andrews University, MI) who lives, gardens, and writes in Seattle area

A few days before Christmas, I watched two emails drop into my Inbox in quick succession.  Each time, I imagined a good friend pressing the SEND icon seconds before.  Then with the press of a key on my PC, their letters were on my screen!  What pleasure it brought to read those messages and open the attached pictures of their families!

I sent messages right back.  It all happened faster than the time it once took to get up from my desk and walk down the hall to their offices in the same building where we worked together in Australia 40 years ago.  Both John and Russ seemed not so far away after all. 

Over the years the geography of my community has radically changed.  In fact I have more contact with friends far away than with most of the neighbors that live on the same street in Seattle! I used to think that “real relationships” happened with people you look in the eye and give a greeting hug.  But my world has been transformed.  Doomsayers dismiss the new technologies and chant a mantra about the good old days.  Well, in my eighth decade of life, I’ve known lots of those good ol’ times, and agree with my friend George Knight that some of those good old times were nothing short of terrible!  So instead of bemoaning the distance of far-away places where some very special friends live, I appreciate the new ways to keep in touch with electronic bridges that span land and sea.

In The World Is Flat, Thomas Friedman summarizes it well:  we can now communicate “from anywhere to anywhere.”   Distance is not what it used to be.  The definition of “neighbor” is now more connected with intentionality than distance.  We no longer connect just informationally, we do it emotionally, spontaneously in the white heat of a moment as we share the excitement of a dream, the memories of an anniversary, the sadness of a time of loss.

I heard the other day of a new website where you can select a person who needs help to start a business.  You loan them the small amount they need.  Twenty-five dollars is a fortune in a distant village in a third-world country.  The web site sends the money and you watch it help a woman (very often a woman) in a far-away place take the first determined steps in a new life.  And interestingly, in a time of shaky home-mortgage loans, virtually all of these micro loans are paid back! As soon as that happens, the web site invites you to choose another person and give them a lift in their difficult lives.  It happens with a few digits on a piece of plastic without leaving your computer screen.  This is such a fabulous development! 

The escalating pace of change is being facilitated by the free flow of ideas from inception to fruition.  They move via new communication tools as effortlessly, powerfully, unpredictably as the wind, reminding us of a conversation Jesus had with rabbi Nicodemus in which He likened the all-powerful Holy Spirit to wind.  Nothing can stop it.  And how instructive that when Jesus defined “neighbor,” he didn’t describe people living on the twisted, step-filled streets of old Jerusalem.  He identified a “neighbor” as a person some distance away, in real need, on a lonely road going down hill on the trail to distant Jericho.  Some important concepts never change.

I support Faith House Manhattan. It’s thousands of miles from the community where I live.  But supporting what is happening there gives me the inspiration to be more involved with needs here.  We don’t live in separate distant communities the way it used to be.  We can now create communication networks across streets, states, countries, anywhere!  The reality came home to me again on December 31, as I wrote checks to my favorite charities, some close to home, others in far-away places.   Distance doesn’t have to matter any more!  To ignore this, to deny this, is to limit our influence and participation in support of our dreams for God's work. What some ancient religions have taught for millennia becomes more and more evident—we are one world, one community. Our prayers, our means, our letters of encouragement can go to anyone anywhere. This is God’s geography!

Comments

[Wayne Jones]

To Roy Naden; I liked your comments.I have a son in the Seattle area...but Port Angeles is a bit of a drive from Seattle.I would like to meet you when I go there if it is not a days drive from Port Angeles. But as you say in your piece we can communicate esily. I would like that. I am 80 and interested in what Faith House is attempting.

[Andy]

Roy: You inspired me to make some donations via microloans to various people around the world.
I grew up in Seattle and now live in NYC. I miss the Seattle summers and the garden we had in our backyard. I did not at the time appreciate tomatoes and wish now that I had.
Andy