an evening of neighbors

as the day closed yesterday, we finished dinner and ate ice cream outside (relishing the mosquito-free garden).  isaac ran around and geoff and i placed a trellis over our eagerly-reaching sweet peas.  wally stopped by with a community garden contract from him and his roommate.  tenika and kendra, two girls in the neighborhood, came over and tried a radish, straight from the soil, for the first time.  i received a call from deborah and raced over to the community garden to meet her and her mother.  they took plots side-by-side and in the slanted last bit of sunlight, began gardening together.  on my way home i stopped by dick's house (our n'hood association treasurer) to pick up a check for a youth organization in our neighborhood.  i chatted with him and his wife (they've lived on the street for 21 years) until dark chased us indoors.  walking home i felt a great sense of placedness - a grounding in one corner of the world, one corner of a city - and with it a budding sense of goodness that comes from knowing the people nearest us.

we've lived in this house almost four years (minus a big chunk of time in australia last year).  we've prayed for a way to meet our neighbors and form relationships that will last, relationships that are genuine.  it's taken a while and it is coming slowly but surely in a way we wouldn't have anticipated, via gardens.  it is a sure sign of an economic, creative god at work - using what we love to do and what brings us such life to establish us in a place.