Neighbors

I was recently “quarantined” alone in my home for 3 days after I received a dose of radioactive iodine to treat my overactive thyroid. During that time, my neighbors took care of me from afar – leaving me dinner on my doorstep every night and flowers and a treat (aka ice cream!) every morning. They called me and they prayed for me. They were my neighbors like no one has ever been my neighbor before. And, this got me thinking: why aren’t people neighbors like they used to be?

There is something to be said for the societal changes we’ve seen the past 50 years. More people live alone, careers are more mobile and so we move more frequently, and we are maybe even busier today with the activities of our own private worlds. But, I think something else is going on too. Psychologists have long identified Americans as individualistic, meaning we focus on our unique self and we view groups as merely a composite of individuals who have different needs, desires, etc… Collectivists, in contrast, focus on the needs of the group first and see their own self as indistinguishable from that group. Americans are individuals first and a unique self within any group second. Collecitivists’ identity is one and the same as that of the group and their own self is ok as long as the group is ok. (Yes, I am overgeneralizing.)

For whatever reason, Americans seem to be growing more extreme in their individualism, to the point where we are no longer neighbors to our neighbors. And who are our neighbors? We know Jesus spoke to this question. In Luke Chapter 10, Jesus affirms a Jewish scholar who connects love of God with love of neighbor as the one greatest commandment after which Jesus moves into the story of the Good Samaratin. Many people today conclude that Jesus was telling us that everyone is our neighbor. This is true, but because Samaritans were the enemies of Jews, Jesus tells us that our neighbor is not just anyone, everyone, but our very enemies.

Love of enemies is a juicy topic for another day’s blog. Today I am suggesting we struggle just to love/be neighbors to the people we care about and to the people we don’t know. How do we be more loving towards our neighbors? Platitudes aside, we need to cultivate a greater sense of collectivism, that we are all members of the same group, this neighborhood, this country, this faith, this human race. Research on intimacy suggests we begin to do this when we rely on one another, support one another, and believe in one another. Easier said than done! Further, we become more collectivistic when we move away from an exchange orientation, where we weigh the costs of giving with the benefits we anticipate receiving. With a communal orientation, we become offended when someone tries to “pay us back.” Afterall, we are just doing what neighbors do!