Season 3, Episode 2: Love Thy Neighbor

Rosanna 0:15
Welcome to season three, Episode Two of the relentless pursuit podcast, love thy neighbor.

Jordan 0:22
Hello, everyone. Welcome to not just Episode Two, but week two of what we’re calling love month. And last week, you heard us have a conversation just about your my person and encouraged you to identify those individuals in your life who you would call my person or my people or my people. And that was specifically at least I would say like, the way I framed it was specifically thinking about our spouses, although it could apply to anyone that we might have thought that the definition worked towards. But today, we are really thinking about the concept of love from a different angle. And that is from this angle of loving our neighbor. Loving someone other than I would say like our family –

Rosanna 1:06
– or like a romantic relationship.

Jordan 1:07
Yeah. And so we’re going to work through today kind of defining what that means and who it applies to. And going from there.

Rosanna 1:15
Alright, so let’s dive in with the definition. So who is a neighbor? So if you actually look up the definition, and obviously the definition looker-upper in the relationship –

Jordan 1:26
Every relationship needs a definite dictionary afficionado.

Rosanna 1:29
Oh, thank you, that sounded fancy. Neighbor is a near dweller, a nearby person or thing, often thinking of like our next door neighbor, or, or those in our community. So that’s kind of like when I say neighbor, or you say neighbor. That’s probably who we’re thinking about right is like, who lives to the left or to the right of us who lives in front of us or behind us?

Jordan 1:50
So that’s like the literal interpretation of it, then is this geographic context like people in our street?

Rosanna 1:56
Correct. But I think for the context of this conversation, and even as you take this conversation and apply it later on, I think we need to move past the idea of neighbors being the people who live next door, and kind of broaden that to a neighbor is anyone you are in community with. So that means it could be the people you work with the people you go to school with the person who makes your coffee, you know, what if we include all of those people in the definition? Would you treat those people differently? If you call them neighbors?

Jordan 2:28
I think that’s an interesting word to apply to all those people. I don’t know if there’s one, I don’t know if there’s another catch all word that pertains to them. And these are all the people that so you’re talking about, we have like physical proximity to in some way or another.

Rosanna 2:43
Yes. But I would even like to push that further in this conversation. Is that a neighbor? Is anyone you’re in community with? And even those who aren’t. A neighbor is everyone and a neighbor is anyone?

Jordan 2:56
Okay, so everybody is our neighbor?

Rosanna 2:59
Yeah. So, you know, my stuff, you might, you might not be near our neighbors.

Jordan 3:04
So even if they’re not nearby, in a sense, like someone on the other end of the world could be my neighbor?

Rosanna 3:09
I think I think so. Okay.

Jordan 3:10
Well, I mean, I think we could explore that a little bit more, maybe there’s varying extents to which we’d apply that term neighbor to different folks.

Rosanna 3:17
Yeah, so let’s, let’s dig in and see where this goes.

Jordan 3:21
You know, I, anytime I think about being a good neighbor, I am always inspired by that old story of the Good Samaritan. Because you have that story of an individual who falls down on the side of the road, or no, he gets beaten up and robbed, and he’s just left half dead on the side of the road. And then you have three very, like, traditionally, like pious people walk by there’s like a priest, and you know, some other individuals who, in maybe, at least, their own minds can check all the boxes of being good people, but they ignore that person that they pass by. And then there’s just kind of like your run of the mill guy, a Samaritan, which in the story, is someone who typically doesn’t get along with the kind of guy who’s on the side of the road. And he has pity on him and ends up like taking them to an inn and paying for his expenses. And so he really sees like this stranger in need. And unlike the people who I would say, check the traditional boxes of, you know, piety or goodness, this person actually like, does a good deed towards someone in need at that moment. So I’ve always been inspired by that. Because, in at least in the context of that story, you know, neighbor doesn’t mean like someone who is like someone that you know, but it’s like someone in a sense, who is in need to some extent and you’re in a position to do good and actually do it.

Rosanna 4:51
Okay. I think that’s, I mean, a good way to look at it. Because anybody you pass by then, if you look at the way that I define it in a broader context is your neighbor is someone and not in need like that they need to be fed or they need to be taken care of. But it’s it’s really anybody who you can kind of extend some kind of love in some way, shape or form to make any interaction with them better.

Jordan 5:18
Yeah, I think the, the needs we seem to have these days maybe are fewer. If you think about it, like we’re, it’s very, like we’re all able to comfortably retreat into our own households, and not really need something from the people who are physically near us, or we have Amazon, I could deliver something to us within a moment’s notice, even like that, that that traditional image of like, go right across the street and ask if you can borrow a cup of sugar, or I need two eggs, like, you don’t even need to do that anymore. Because the grocery stores in such proximity as well. And you feel like you’re imposing on neighbors anytime you ask something from them. So it’s almost helpful maybe to identify like, what are the maybe “needs” is the wrong word, in some cases that’s applicable, but what are the, like the the elements of the gestures of building community and of acknowledging and reinforcing that community with everyone that you have a chance to interact with?

Rosanna 6:09
Yeah, and I think one thing we have to acknowledge is just like, our lives have changed so much from previous generations, you know, we talked about bringing back hobbies, you know, as a way to, like, help foster like creativity and self care, and all of that, you know, this, this notion of the neighbors, you’re right, like, we’ve all kind of like, we have our own land around our house, they’re spread out a little bit further, we can fill our own needs. And so we’re not relying on the people around us. And so maybe it’s time to kind of, you know, think about that, like, No, I don’t need my neighbor to do something for me. But the way that we treat them, the way that we communicate them, the way we include them in our life, you know, might change the way that the world works, if we decided that we could rely on them, or could bring them into our circle, instead of keeping everybody at arm’s distance.

Jordan 6:58
Yeah. And it makes me think about just that that phrase like love your neighbor, I think has a couple of different ways of being applied, like one is, like, working to positively interact with one another and build that community. But the other is also like loving it – Like, you kind of need to be told to love someone that you’re not naturally inclined to, right, if you’re already doing it, that we don’t need to be talking about it. But it’s almost like this idea of like, well wait a minute, like these, these individuals – and there’s a broad definition that we’re applying that people would fit into – they, we have to be reminded and proactively love because we’re not all the same. But there is a certain element of that ingredient of love can often be overlooked or missed. And that’s really the intention of this conversation is to explore what they really mean. So is the neighbor but also, how do we demonstrate that love?

Rosanna 7:54
Yeah, and you know, now more than ever, we’re almost I don’t want to say programmed, but it kind of seems like that to recognize everybody’s differences. And what, what makes us all different and keeps us away from each other as opposed to recognizing what we all have in common. And there’s a lot that we have in common, especially with the people that are around us. And so kind of recognizing the good, and the sameness and all of us like can can help our communities become stronger, and move forward. And so instead of looking for the differences, we need to start like bringing people in bringing people together, which reminds me of when we moved into our first house, we were in a townhouse first and then house, one of our intentions was to, to bring people together. And so here we were, what I mean we we’ve been married, like five years, we had just had our first kid. And we started making flyers and putting them in mailboxes to reignite the old fashion block party.

Jordan 8:53
Yeah, yeah. Cuz we showed up like, Yeah, right. When’s the block party? Oh, there isn’t one? Alright, like, let’s get some folks together.

Rosanna 8:58
And so we were trying to like rally people and someone’s like, Oh, we haven’t had a black party on this block in like 15 years, you know, everybody’s kids had grown up had moved out, all of those people were a little bit older, they were kind of done with that stage. And we were just kicking off and then to see like the first block party to like the fifth block party or sixth black party, from when we moved in until when we left and like what we cultivated on the block and getting other people to buy in and people who were leery at first and, and didn’t want to participate. And then were then like, you know, putting bounce houses in their front yard and, and doing things for the kids that they didn’t have, because there was this sense of camaraderie and love amongst people who really had no other connection to one another. But then we started you know, we built friendships with the people on that block and a business partnership for you, you know, in in a real estate transaction. And so, it you know, it’s just interesting when we’re connected, what we gain from that and whether it’s, you know, wisdom about parenting or other other transactions and things like we all become better. Not just about us, it’s about something else.

Jordan 10:02
I’m reminded of, remember we had that the fire department come out for the kids, and all the kids are at glamper and other fire trucks, and then they get an emergency call. And they’re like, quickly, like throwing the kids off the truck, like we gotta go.

Rosanna 10:14
Yeah, and I mean, it’s something that our kids remember and talk about now. And now our neighborhood is very different in terms of who lives on our block. And the way that we’re showing up to love our neighbors isn’t through a block party. So it’s, you know, you have to realize you have to work with what’s around you. And so sometimes the showing of love and camaraderie looks very different, depending on where you live, and depending on you know, just the parameters of who the people are. And so part of that is for us to figure that out. And, and to spread that love and to spread that joy, even if it’s in a different way.

Jordan 10:45
All right. So, you know, I felt like last season, we talked about being a good follower. And then we tend to think of follower in a narrow lane, like how to be a good social media follower, in a sense, and I think we’re trying to define that more broadly. And I get the same idea with neighbor to where the most applicable definition is to think like those people on our block. I have that song, I know where it’s from who the people in your neighbor, Sesame Street. Alright, so that’s why it’s stuck in my head. But we’re really so when we, anytime we say a neighbor, we’re really talking about like anyone we have the chance to interact with and have some degree of community community with.

Rosanna 11:23
Right. I mean, so you know, our block our neighborhood, our community, our city, our state, the United States, like, you know, there’s this commonality, there’s this, we are part of all of those different things. So neighbors can be a vast, vast, deep and wide word.

Jordan 11:39
Yeah. All right. So who is I see you have a name written down for the ultimate neighbor?

Rosanna 11:44
Oh, the ultimate neighbor? Can you guess? Mr. Rogers, right, he was like the ultimate neighbor, and neighbor, hello, neighbor. And he called us neighbors. And so what I thought was interesting about that is he didn’t call us like, well, Hello, friends, Hello, boys, and girls, you know, he didn’t, or Ladies and gentlemen, his mindset was that we were all neighbors, and that we all needed to be taken care of. And we all needed to take care of each other. And so then I think that also extends into this, this bigger grouping of neighbors, that it’s not just taking care of who you see, but even, you know, further out, he advocated for individuals to work for the well being of the most vulnerable, were wherever they may be in whatever work that they do. So even at work, right? How are you a good neighbor to the people that are around you? It doesn’t have to be, you know, to who you live next to but in any context, in any circle that you are, how are you a good neighbor. And then he constantly affirm the coexistence of individuality and self expression with the respect for yourself and the respect for others, regardless of their color, background, religion, or political views. And so if you look at a lot of what he did, it’s there.

Jordan 12:59
You mean like outside of the show, I don’t recall like episode, remember, like the trolley and the land of make believe. And so you’re saying even kind of in his, in his personal ethic that was applicable?

Rosanna 13:11
He wasn’t marching for racial injustice, but at the same time, he employed black actors on his show. And so he took a stance for what he believed in in very quiet ways. But in very big ways. And so, you know, I think that’s a challenge to all of us about kind of opening up who our neighbors are. And you know, how, what we stand for,

Jordan 13:31
Yeah. And how we can demonstrate like, what love looks like within that context. And we can demonstrate that.

Rosanna 13:37
Right. He did it through children show. So we’re, where you are and where you’re planted. How are you doing that?

Jordan 13:42
Yeah. So I mean, this reminds me of that time, so as I think two weeks ago now, but there was an individual who was right outside of our front door, like literally, right on the street, with his car broken down, right outside of our front door. And I think I casually noticed him at one point, but then we were coming home from from something and I remember this guy was still there. And this was just someone like his head was in the hood. I didn’t know who this was. And obvious like stranger to the block, we hadn’t seen him before. And I don’t know how long he was there. But I kind of at that moment, like realized I had two choices. One would be I could just come inside and do my own thing and forget about him. But yeah, like he seemed like he was working on his car and it was broken down that was and that in fact was the case. So in this one, in this instance, it was almost like this, this I would say like this, this handcrafted, like, Here you go, Jordan, here’s kind of this really easy and accessible opportunity. Just do it like to be a good neighbor, in a sense. There’s someone right there who needs exactly what you have, and at have like a very low personal cost, I had nothing going on that day. It didn’t cost me any money, a little bit of time. Attention. And so I went over to him and said, like, Hey, how’s it going? You need a hand? And it turned out he’s like, yeah, like my car is leaking all this fluid. Okay, do you need some tools? And so I grabbed my toolbox. And I told him, I said, you don’t want me touching your engine, because I have no idea how any of that works. But you’ll make use of all these tools in and he was able to manipulate those. And then he needed a ride to the auto parts store. And so here’s the stranger and we get in the car together, and we go…

Rosanna 15:30
Well, I thought it was a little crazy. Because you came in you said, Alright, I’m going to I’m going to take him to the auto parts store, just just down the road. Where is it? All right, gave you some directions. And then I said, so we’re in a pandemic, and you’re gonna put a stranger in our car? And you’re like, yeah, I said, Okay. Can you both wear a mask? Please? Yeah, you know, just to protect yourself and be safe. But you’re right, it was a relatively easy task.

Jordan 15:52
Right. And like I said, like, it was a minor inconvenience, right? Nothing else going on that day didn’t cost me anything. But those are some of the things that are often overlooked as well. And, you know, so at that moment, and I kind of wish like for more like, you know, moments like that, it’s like, if this is what helping, you know, someone else looks like it. This is what being a good citizen and loving your neighbor looks like, like, I could totally do that. But at the same time, like, how long was he out there? And how many people like noticed that and did nothing? And how many times have I done the same thing? So that I mean, that instance, kind of got me thinking about what like, what are some of the other ways that we may be overlook or turn a blind eye to?

Rosanna 16:36
Well, do you think it’s because we become weary of other people that we just close the front door and back away slowly?

Jordan 16:44
“Weary” or “wary”?

Rosanna 16:48
So I was thinking of leery and wary altogether. And I made my own word. You know, we’re just unsure. Like, is his car really broken down? Does he actually need help? Like it you know, that we kind of jumped to these conclusions as like, Oh, I don’t need to go out there. Because, like, if I was a stranger danger, yes. If I was home by myself, right? Should I have like, as – and I mean this sounds silly – but as a woman, like gone outside and be like, hey, everything. Okay? Can I call you a tow? Like, is it safe for me to do that? Right? Hey, yeah, let’s put the kids in the car. And I’ll take you to that like, right, like, I have to kind of weigh those options in terms of like, being safe, and you know, protecting my kids and all of that, like, do we not do the things that we know we should because we’re afraid of, of people? Like have we become afraid of people that because we do not love our neighbors? We’re afraid of doing the right thing?

Jordan 17:41
Yeah. I mean, we’re in a highly litigious society as well. So it’s like, well, if you know, I try to help or if something goes the wrong way, does that expose me like to some degree of harm? And I think we have to weigh that as well. And, you know, and certainly with strangers, but yeah, I think that that is one element that kind of goes into the equation. Maybe more than we’d like it to.

Rosanna 18:10
Yeah. Well, yeah. I mean, it’s, it’s something to consider, but I mean, okay, so you let some guy this guy, some tools, and then you took them to the autoparts. Store. And he came back, and he fixed it. And he was on his way, and he was on his way.

Jordan 18:12
And he really needed the help. Like he didn’t, it wasn’t in a position to like, you know, call it a tow truck or bring it to an auto shop. His family was out of the country, and to just like, kind of, you know, just up a creek. And so at the end of it, he was like, he was so polite. He’s like, you literally, like, saved my entire day. He tried to offer me like gas money for taking him to the store. Like, no, that’s okay. But like I said, like that, but it was like in kind of like a gimme like a handcrafted, like, you can help this guy out. So that’s what I want to explore in this conversation more is like, now we’ve kind of identified who are our neighbors, but how, how do we love them? And what gets in the way? So that that’s my first big question for you is, like, right now, it feels like there’s that there’s so much animosity in society. And in many ways, we don’t know who to trust, or maybe our opinions of people shift depending on, you know, the, like, the changes with the weather, in a sense with, you know, the political climate. And so, I guess, how do we in light of differences, whether they’re like political or religious or racial or financial, you know, the list goes on. What role do those differences play and how do we, despite those differences, love our neighbor?

Rosanna 19:49
I think the I don’t know if this is the easy answer or the right answer, but I think it’s what I believe to be true is that none of those matter because if our kid was driving his car and was stranded on a block somewhere, what would I want someone to do? I would want someone to go outside and say, Are you okay? Do you need help? What what is it that I can do for you? And, you know, his nationality, his background, his religious beliefs, his political views don’t come into play when somebody needs help. A person is a person no matter what.

Jordan 20:27
Yeah. And I think that’s, it’s it sounds simple, right? I mean, it looks good on paper, like, just whoever this person is in front of me. Like, I’m going to extend to them, the, you know, the kindness and love and respect that they just inherently deserve. In reality, though, like, what are the barriers that that get in the way? Like, why do we recoil? And I think you mentioned, just this wariness that we have of other individuals, particularly with strangers. But you know, sometimes even with people that we know, too, like we don’t in conversations like broach certain subjects, or, you know, maybe go and become as vulnerable as we potentially could. And so that that’s, that’s just, I feel like this area that I want to grow a little, how can I become more others oriented, just more with a greater sense of abandoned just become a more loving individual in the way that society needs?

Rosanna 21:22
Well, and I think we, we think it has to be something big, right? Like, we have to, like help someone fix their car or whatever. But I mean, a smile, holding the door open for someone like, you know, wasting an extra 25 seconds in your day to make someone’s life easier, right? Like we always put ourselves first and our agenda, and we have this to do and we have that to do. But like, do we take the time to just stop and look around? Are we looking for opportunities to make a difference? You know, my 87 year old neighbor, you know, what I can do for her, is it’s very minimal. When I see her pulling out the garbage cans, she didn’t even want me to pull out the garbage cans for her. But like, she wants an interaction. Yeah, she wants a smile. She wants to hear about the dog. She wants to hear about the kids because really all day who’s talking to her? No one. And so we’re always so focused on what’s next for us, or what’s going on or what we’ve got going on, that we don’t take the time to consider other people.

Jordan 22:22
Yeah. And so it’s a lot a lot of the time, then it’s just those small gestures. Like the the phrase that’s come into my mind is like the the recognition of the humanity in the people that we interact with. And that I think, for me that word recognition is big, because when we pass a bunch of people, and we don’t, we’re not, we we see without seeing.

Rosanna 22:40
I love that that’s I was gonna say we see them, but we do not see them. They are invisible.

Jordan 22:45
So maybe that’s the first thing and maybe the only thing that we’d end up doing, but for the typical person who like they don’t have an immediate need that needs to be met. But they, I think we all benefit from the sense of just like being seen being recognized for for who we are for the human that we are, and receiving that inherent dignity and respect.

Rosanna 23:07
Well, I don’t know how many times I’ve seen another mom at like Target or the grocery store with like, one kid, multiple kids, but one, some or all of them are melting down in one in one way, shape, or form. And you could see that they’re just embarrassed, and they’re just stressed. And they’re just like about to lose it. And how many times just like a reassuring word is like, it’s that age, it’ll pay like even just me saying something to someone else. You see, like, their shoulders kind of come down. Like, they kind of like wipe the sweat off their brow. It’s like, someone sees me someone acknowledges that this is hard, like, okay…

Jordan 23:39
Yes. So in those circumstances, though, I just, I don’t know if this is better or worse, but I might just pretend that I don’t see them. Because if they’re embarrassed, it’s you know, so it’s like the social embarrassment. So I’m like, if I didn’t see them, do you feel less embarrassed?

Rosanna 23:52
I’m pretty sure they know, you saw that. If I just tiptoe past you, or pretend this didn’t happen.

Jordan 23:59
I’m like they’re struggling right now. And the last thing they want is for me to call attention to it.

Rosanna 24:03
You know, it’s I think it’s important to love our neighbors because good things come from simple exchanges. And that’s what we overlook, we always think it’s that we’re gonna change somebody’s tire, right? Or we’re gonna pay for someone’s groceries or someone’s coffee, which are all great things, you know, you someone pays for your coffee in a line at Starbucks, and then you post it on Facebook. Hey, thanks to the blue car behind me at Starbucks this morning. I paid it forward too and then this barista leader tells you like people paid it forward eighty-three times today. And it’s just like, it’s a little hot in your step to let you know that like that people are good, and that people care or that you matter. You know, when you’re having a bad day and someone pays for your coffee, like, you know, it kind of it, it reminds you of the things that you know, we lose sight of on a day-to-day basis.

Jordan 24:45
Yeah, you know, for me, you know, something else that comes to mind is maybe this is more so at work, but here too at home. There’s I’m just working you know, there’s something on my mind. I have a task that I’m trying to accomplish and then somebody knocks on the door, somebody shows up and need something or want some kind of interaction. And my heart at those moments is like, go away, because I want to check this thing off of my list. And this is something I’ve talked about multiple times now, but I’m trying to grow in that regard. So maybe like this, that attitude that I have the disposition that I turned myself to have within those moments is one that is interruptible. Like, when did we when did we become so uninterruptible? Is what I’m working on at any given moment, like so important that it trump’s the person in front of me?

Rosanna 25:37
The answer to that is probably no most times Yeah, you know, it’s the same position of having having clenched hands and holding on to everything that you have, instead of having open hands, so that if somebody needs something from your hands, they can take from it, they can give to it, right, you can freely give and take instead of like, clenched all the time. And so I think about that, with time, I think about that with like our stuff, you know, with our goals for being more generous and charitable this year, like, yeah, we could keep that money, right? That could be that could go towards a trip or a nice dinner or something for the house. And, you know, the fact that our position now is to open our hands more. And not just to like, say that we’ve done something, but to kind of like change your focus and change your attitude and change your heart is big. And so I think this is you know, the love this whole idea of loving thy neighbor. It’s it’s a heart issue, like where’s your heart? I joke I’ve joked about this with a friend of mine. Okay, we moved we’ve talked about that I love our house, I love it, we moved in it was it was perfect, perfectly painted perfectly, whatever. And, you know, since we moved in, like every child that has visited, our home has, I think pretty much licked to their hands and then wipe to them across every wall, there’s dings and dents in, you know, divots, and, you know, I like things just so, so it’s like a walk around kind of itching sometimes that it’s not perfect. And it’s a constant reminder to myself, who do I love more? Or what do I love more? Is it my house? Or is it the people that are inside and the people that visit regardless of if they write on my walls with a pen when they’re here?

Jordan 27:13
Sure. And it’d be it’d be nice to have both right. It’s like the guests. And the the lack of damage. It reminds me of when I was young when I was in high school, and I did percussion. And one day like these other non musicians were I think they were choir kids were coming in to do something with the band. And one kid takes this heavy backpack and he puts it on my timpani drum. You don’t put anything on the timpani drum. And as a percussionist, I took personal offense to this. So I just shoved this as hard as I could right off. And the kid was like, What the heck, and people were surprised. I’m like, Don’t do that to the timpani, you know, as I was upset, but then A moment later, I was like, well, what’s more important, like the person or the object? And like, it’s the person so I apologize to the kid, and more politely told him, like, don’t put anything on my drum.

Rosanna 28:02
Don’t put anything on my drum. Famous last words.

Jordan 28:04
Write that down. So I can’t, I’m thinking about this from like, a prioritization standpoint to like, I can’t love everyone, like to this, like this full line like, extends like it’s, but you know, there at the end of the day, there there are, there’s you and the kids, to whom I believe I owe the preponderance of my time and attention. I have legitimate tasks that can be put off, but at some point need to be accomplished as well. So how do I, how do I prioritize those to whom I am giving time and attention and still say I’m doing an effective job loving loving my neighbor?

Rosanna 28:47
I think you can love everybody always, but the extent will always be different. So you know, the day that someone’s car was broken, outside of our front door, right? Extending yourself in that situation, when I see her neighbors smiling, waving, saying, hello, different exchanges, right? Those are things that don’t cost me there are times when I’m backing out of the driveway, and I can’t stop and chat and that’s okay. But when we establish love a majority of the time, like no one, no one expects you to, you know, to overfill their bucket all the time. But if they if they know that, who you are and what you stand for, and they know that you’re there, I think that makes a difference. You know, when a coworker does come to you and has a problem or a question and you give them the time, they’re not going to stop you every time and they’re not going to expect that every time but like establishing a sense of of love and laying that groundwork kind of helps kind of set the tone for everything else.

Jordan 29:48
So in a sense that requires a degree of, of just this innate like attitude, like alright, I am going to be others-oriented. I have my own things to work on. But when an opportunity which I could probably be more attuned to arises, or when an interruption arises, I can decide from now how I’m going to look for those things, or I’m going to respond to those things when they do come up.

Rosanna 30:11
Yeah. Yeah, no, yeah, no one’s asking you to go like, go sit in your office and like, just, you know, throw your work aside and just wait for people to come to you or to like, you know, go individually check on all 22 members of your department, like, No one expects that of you. But it’s what is your position when the when those opportunities do arise?

Jordan 30:30
Yeah, it reminds me of Super Grover for a little bit, because we haven’t had enough Sesame Street references this episode, but, you know, he throws on his cape and like, shows up somewhere, he’s like, I’m ready to do my good deed, I’m ready to help and like, the people just don’t need him. And they think, anyway, you know, you don’t want to be that either. So striking the balance, but I think it is an attitude. And it’s easy to like, just recoil into our own lives. And so like, part of love month, is just taking some daily time towards developing this, this skill within ourselves, this muscle, if you will, to be able to love others. And, you know, and we’re already doing so I would say like to develop it further, to an extent that I haven’t demonstrated so far.

Rosanna 31:12
Right. And this month, you could be doing all sorts of random acts of kindness for people in your community, right? Baking cookies for the police department, or, you know, going through your closets and gathering clothes that you don’t wear and donating them. So you can do those things, which are an act of love and service. But I think it’s more about like, when you see people, are you seeing them? And are you extending love in a world that doesn’t seem to have a lot of it right now?

Jordan 31:39
Or what what if I disagree with someone on something that is really important to me, like, this is just an example like, I voted for candidate x, they voted for candidate y. And, you know, either I or they like see this as a barrier to our relationship, like what is my obligation then? Or if you know, insert any other controversial disagreement?

Rosanna 32:03
And that’s hard for me to answer because to me, it’s I I don’t go through life thinking that anybody needs to think the same thing as me. And so while I may not agree with them, that would not keep me from being civil, kind or loving towards them.

Jordan 32:19
So it sounds like an easy question to answer then. And maybe part of what we’re doing wrong as a society is overcomplicating it to the extent that like, we’re not just letting that be a barrier to our love, but a reason for our open animosity toward someone not like us.

Rosanna 32:35
Well, I mean, to me, it just seems silly. Like, we are Cubs fans, we know people who are Sox fans, that doesn’t mean that we don’t invite them over.

Jordan 32:43
Well, that that is like a traditional, that’s like an aspect of entertainment to disagree over. But I’m talking about like, and something that is of greater consequence. Like we joke about our kids teachers who are Packers fans, and even though that really like gets my goat, at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter. But what like things that matter, though, I think that is difficult. And I don’t feel this way. But I feel like you know, many people, many of our listeners maybe will feel this way that it can be difficult to surmount those feelings, so that recognition, and as willingly, like, extend a degree of love towards someone.

Rosanna 33:29
But why can’t I don’t? There’s so much I can say about that. We cannot expect people to do what we want them to do. We cannot expect other people to think the ways that we think. We will say that they’re wrong, they will say that we’re wrong. Like how do we know that we’re not wrong? Or that we’re at fault? Like, opinions? Yeah, I mean, you know, the statement about opinions, right? Like, it is what it is like, we were created to respect and love people. Like that, that’s – that’s our job. Yeah, in everything that we do. And so if we let that permeate, I mean, you those things cannot matter. They those things should not divide us. There’s there’s who we are like, we are human beings, like we are the same. There are variances in differences, but we are the same. So why can we not find what’s in common?

Jordan 34:17
I’ll put a closing thought on that too. Which is, I think, if the best we could say is that we only love people who are just like us, I don’t think that’s saying very much. I don’t think it’s saying very much about our love.

Rosanna 34:32
Deep thought, yeah. So what do you think time to wrap up?

Jordan 34:36
I think so.

Rosanna 34:37
Alright, so I think kind of just based on this conversation about our definition, as a neighbor being anyone in everyone in every circle in every context. These would be my takeaways. To all people, to all neighbors near and far, be generous. Be generous with your time with your smiles with your acts of service. Be fair, only a person’s character should matter, not their race, not their ethnicity, not their gender, not their political views. Be kind. We’re surrounded by a world filled with hate, bitterness, jealousy, envy and violence. Just be kind and compassionate. Find what unites us. And be peaceful. Forgive a neighbor who has wronged you or offends you. Forgive those who don’t believe the same as you. Move the things that we put up as barriers to the outside and find the things that unite us. That’s what I got.

Jordan 35:32
That’s beautiful. I can’t add to that.

Rosanna 35:35
Well, you know, it’s easy to love your people. It’s easy to love your person, it’s easy to love your friends and the people that vote the same way as you do. And some people find it hard to love everybody in anybody else. And so that’s my challenge is find the good find the people see them, see them for who they are see past what the differences are, and move towards love in in every context in every Arena in every community.

Jordan 36:02
And I think like so many things that the show it, it sounds self-evident, in a sense, but it is difficult to apply. And so that application really takes some commitment in some kind of daily intentionality to move towards.

Rosanna 36:16
So let’s be intentional, and let’s move forward in love.

Jordan 36:19
Let’s do it, Rosanna. All right. Thank you guys so much for joining us on this episode. And we’re looking forward to the following episodes this month that will continue to focus on additional elements related to love. Alright, we’ll

Rosanna 36:33
Alright we’ll see you guys soon. Bye. Bye, everybody.