This story is about conflict that ended with peace and friendship. It’s one of those (seemingly) few happy ending stories, so it stands out amidst all the doom & gloom we often hear.
It begins, naturally enough, as a disagreement about real estate. Down the street from a property I own is a vacant commercial lot. The owner — who also happened to live nearby — partnered with another company to propose a use that I considered a horrible addition to the neighborhood. It was, in my opinion, going to bring in crime, traffic, ugliness, etc. Worse, it did nothing to add value to the actual neighborhood.
The elected officials favored the idea. But nobody else, other than the applicants, liked it.
We went through the normal rounds of conversations and public hearings, but it was clear my objections were not going to be carry the vote. So I did something out of character for me. I sued my neighbor, his partners, and the local government in an attempt to stop the project. Other nearby residents cheered me on, sometimes using language that I found unnecessarily harsh toward the applicant.
In the midst of the lawsuit D’Aun and I modeled (or tried to model) love, grace, the power of listening, and empathy. My attorney was a bulldog, but I worked behind the scenes to stay in touch with the neighbor and remain civil. Turns out he had significant health issues and was trying to generate cash to help with costs. There were other challenges too, but I won’t list them here. It was a difficult time for him and this influenced his decision making.
I tried to respond with compassion, grace, and sympathy. Reality check, it’s not like I was bringing him soup or anything — please don’t look at this as I suddenly became Mother Teresa. I had sharp and pointed conversations with him. But I also asked how he was doing, personally, and listened to his heart. I loved his smile when he talked about his kids and grandkids, and looked him in the eye when he shared the latest medical update. I was, in a short, a good neighbor to him.
He was blown away by this because he expected us to vilify him. That’s what you do in a fight, right? You attempt to destroy the other. But we took a different approach. He was our neighbor, flaws and needs and all. It was our job to figure out how to love him while strongly disagreeing with him.
We ended up settling out of court with an agreement to stop the project. So I “won” though not in the way I had expected.
See, I wanted to stop the property development they proposed. But I also wanted to love my neighbor. We won on the first goal, but more importantly we won on the second goal too.
A few months after the settlement, my neighbor called and asked to meet. He said he had something for me. As soon as he arrived he handed me an envelope with a donation to PathLight. “What you did for me is a gift I can’t repay,” were his opening words. “You showed me what it means to be tough but fair. My health has improved, I started volunteering at a homeless shelter, and I even went back to church. How you and D’Aun treated me modeled something I’ve never seen before.”
This is how God works. This is what loving our neighbor looks like. This is even what “fundraising” really is. We are called to love our neighbor. No exceptions.
Photo of poppies blooming in the neighborhood after a series of storms.