Eight Inches Away

I live in a duplex with my wife and two daughters. Originally a single-family dwelling, somebody restructured the layout in the 1940s or '50s with a divided kitchen, a duplicated bathroom, and a wall down the middle, creating two identical, but opposite, apartments. As much as I like our apartment, it's a challenge living eight inches away from the neighbors. Living like this has changed the way I view Jesus' love for me, as you'll see in a moment, and it has also changed the way I think about my neighbors at home and at work.

Living eight inches away from someone means we hear almost everything: arguments, parties, laughter, toilet-flushing. It's all so close. A few events have even stung my memory. I remember an epithetical barrage of words that surely scarred one of their children. The next day my neighbor and I stepped outside for work—exchanged pleasantries just like nonduplex neighbors do—and pretended as though the event never occurred. Yet it did, and both of us knew it.

We also share a physical space. For instance, if my family makes a mess and attracts mice, guess who else gets mice? If I care about yard work and my neighbor doesn't, guess who deals with an overgrown yard? Actually, the neighbor has no interest in cutting the grass, but he likes to see it cut. He offered to pay me to mow his side, and I refused compensation. He insisted. Back and forth we went until I finally said okay. Then he didn't pay. Do you know how long it took for me to mow his half with a generous heart?

It's easy to love neighbors who are isolated. In a duplex, however, you don't have this option. You share space. You know things. You know what goes on behind thin walls, and you still have to love them even when you don't think you can.

Interestingly, Jesus models this difficult, neighborly love. He listens intimately through the thin walls of my heart and mind—behind which I live a supposedly secret life. Jesus knows exactly what's going on in my life, yet when we meet on the doorstep the next day, he addresses my pain and loves me graciously.

Living with Your Customer

This observation convicts me in an obvious way: I need to love my duplex neighbor better. But living here and working from home has also allowed me to consider something else. "Loving your neighbor as yourself" is part of the high calling of our daily work. Jesus' command is more than a simple reference to those next door. It includes the people we serve during two-thirds of our waking lives.

Consider your vocation and the purpose of your job. Now picture the consumer of your product or service living on the other side of the wall. How might this roof-sharing situation change your relationship? For example, if you practice law and your client lives next door, does this duplex image make you treat her case differently? If you teach high school and your worst student lives next door, does it affect the way you communicate with him? And what if you make advertisements and your neighbor buys the gadgets you promote? Do you question what you're selling and how?

Work relationships require a professional distance, of course, but I believe that distance is often too great. Perhaps it needs to be eight inches. I know this would affect me. I'd know more and have to love more, just as I do with my real neighbor.

This week, try asking God to mentally and spiritually move you next door to your customer. Then don't forget to offer praise when your work begins to exhibit the effects.

Questions for personal reflection, online discussion, or small groups:

• Have you ever had neighbors whom you wished lived farther away? How did this feeling of confinement affect your interactions with them?
• When neighbors share close quarters, it is nearly impossible to hide from each other. Why is love in this scenario potentially more Christlike than the love we have for neighbors who live far away? (Matt, 5:46-48)
• In the article above, I asked several rhetorical questions about living next door to your customer. Practically speaking, how would your relationship with a customer change if you had to move next door?
• Think of a customer (client, student, patron, patient, daughter . . .) who needs you to be a better neighbor. What sacrifice might this neighbor need from you? What risk on your part would benefit him or her? What, perhaps radical, decision would cause Christ's love to shine on this neighbor?