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Description

What if the most neighbourly thing you could do was simply to be available?

This reflection takes us to a front porch, where two people watch the street and do nothing in particular. Their quiet presence raises honest questions about availability, interruption, and the ordinary soil where real care grows. Sometimes, gentle acts of showing up can mean more than any plan or program ever could.

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Welcome to Summer Speedos from Neighborly, our short in between season

series while Shannon takes a break from her regular interviews. I'm

Johan, the producer of the show. Some episodes are field notes recorded

outside in ordinary places where care actually happens. Others

are story field notes, more cinematic reflections that start with a story

from history or real life. Either way, we're paying attention to the small,

ordinary ways care, faith, courage and community show up around us.

So grab a cold drink or head out on that bike ride, walk or hike.

Enjoy this year's edition of Summer Speedos from Neighborly.

Hey everyone, Johan here. Another Summer Speedos episode. While

we are in between seasons and interviews with guests,

let's just be outside and enjoy the weather and make some observations and

learn to love our neighbors a little bit better. And you know, I want to

get out of my basement again. It's. It's just dark and dingy down there. No

windows. So here I am out on a walk, the birds are chirping,

traffic's going, people riding their bikes on this non rainy day in

Winnipeg. Anyway, on my walk today there were two

people sitting on a front porch and they were doing

absolutely nothing. And I mean that as a compliment.

It actually looked quite nice and I was a little envious. They had no

phones that I can see. There's no yard project in front of

them. No frantic. We're just outside because the inside of

our house is somehow worse. Just two people sitting

there watching the street move, a car rolling

by, a squirrel chasing another squirrel up a tree with

a lot of energy. And whatever else happens on

the street, kids, bikes, all that stuff, just life.

Just two people taking an all in, sitting on

a porch, doing nothing. At first I thought

that must be nice. And then I thought actually

maybe that is quite rare because most of us

don't sit where we can be interrupted anymore. We're

inside, we're in the backyard, we're

in the car, we're moving from one thing to the next. Even

when we're technically outside, we often have headphones in a

podcast on hopefully this one, a phone in hand

or a facial expression that says please don't perceive me,

which to be fair, is also my resting grocery store

face. But a front porch. A front

porch is different. It says I'm here but I'm

not closed. And that's what caught me. A porch

is not an event, it's not a strategy. It's not

a five step outreach plan with a logo that took six

meetings to approve. It's just availability with

a chair and maybe that's more

powerful than we think. A lot of neighborly care

starts before anyone asks for help. It starts when people

become familiar with each other. You may see the same person enough

times that a nod becomes a wave and a wave becomes a

hello, and eventually someone says, I noticed you were away

last week. Everything okay? That kind of care

can't be rushed. It grows in the soil of

ordinary presence. I think about how often Jesus

met people in ordinary places, in roads,

tables, wells, homes, and shorelines,

and he wasn't launching a program. Sometimes he was simply

present enough to notice the person in front of him, and that

challenges me, because I like care that can be scheduled.

I like things with titles and timelines and

preferably a Google Doc. A Google Doc gives me the illusion of control, which

is one of my favorite illusions. But some forms of care

can't be organized into a spreadsheet. They happen because someone

stayed outside, unhurried and available.

So maybe the question this week isn't how do I become more

impressive at caring? Maybe it's where have

I become unavailable without realizing it? Maybe

it's after church, when we do the post service escape walk while

pretending to look for our keys. Maybe it's on our

streets, where we know the house is better than we actually know the people.

Or maybe it's on a walk, like what I'm doing now, where I'm more connected

to my headphones than the neighborhood around me, and frankly, I'm

looking a little weird talking to a microphone. The invitation

is small. Create one little pocket of

availability. Just one. Sit outside

for 10 minutes. Wave first,

ask a neighbor's name. Stay in one ordinary

place long enough that someone could actually interrupt you.

You don't need a porch to practice presence,

but if you have one, it might already be doing more ministry

than you think. That's the field note. Keep

notic.

It.