I live in an apartment complex with thin walls. My neighbor downstairs, Sarah, is a single mom with a newborn. For three weeks, that baby has screamed from 2 AM to 4 AM. I haven’t slept. I was exhausted. Frustrated.
Yesterday, I went downstairs to knock on her door. I was going to complain. I was going to talk about “quiet hours.” I raised my hand to knock, and I heard it through the wood. She was sobbing. “Please,” she was whispering to the baby. “Please sleep. Mommy is so tired. Mommy is so alone.”
My anger evaporated. I went back upstairs. I made a casserole. I put a few quiet toys I had in a gift bag (I’m a kindergarten teacher). I wrote a note: “I hear you. You’re doing a great job. Leave your laundry basket outside your door tomorrow morning. I’ll wash and fold it. Get some rest. – Apt 4B”
This morning, the basket was there. I did three loads. I folded the tiny onesies. When I returned it, she opened the door. She looked like a ghost, but she smiled. “I thought you were coming to yell at me,” she said.
“We’re neighbors,” I told her. “We’re supposed to hold each other up.” The baby cried tonight. But I didn’t mind. I just turned on my fan and prayed for her strength.
Storytime
My Commentary:
Sometimes the difference between anger and compassion is simply knowing what someone else is going through.
Upstairs, the neighbor heard a crying baby and thought, “I need sleep.” Downstairs, a desperate mother heard the same crying baby and thought, “I don’t know how much longer I can do this alone.”
Then one overheard sentence changed everything.
The complaint became a casserole. Frustration became three loads of laundry. And irritation became prayer. That is very close to the heart of Christianity.
Jesus continually looked beneath people’s behavior to see their burdens. Where others saw an interruption, a sinner, a nuisance, or a problem, Jesus saw a human being who needed compassion.
How often do we become angry with people without knowing the story behind their actions? The impatient cashier may be worried about a sick child. The difficult coworker may be carrying grief. The exhausted mother may simply need someone to tell her, “You’re not alone.”
The neighbor could not stop the baby from crying. She could not give Sarah a full night’s sleep. But she could lighten the load.
St. Paul wrote, “Bear one another’s burdens.” Sometimes that command becomes wonderfully literal. A laundry basket appeared outside a door. Someone picked it up.
And the Kingdom of God quietly entered an apartment building.
We cannot carry everyone’s burdens.
But when we encounter one lying directly in our path, perhaps Jesus is simply asking:
“Can you carry this one for a little while?”
A lot of people have been on our streets from coast to coast this year. Have YOU listened to what they have been shouting as ICE arrests their neighbors? “We’re Neighbors!”
GOD GAVE US EYES TO SEE THE BEAUTY IN NATURE AND HEARTS TO SEE THE BEAUTY IN EACH OTHER!
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