Peace amid the common neighbourly dispute

A single tree shouldn’t cause that much chagrin, but just about everyone has a story from some period in their life about how a tree came between neighbors — or caused some kind of dispute.

The neighbor wanted it trimmed or felled.  The owner appreciated the shade the tree provided.  So often a basic, everyday conflict like this becomes a major dispute.

Or perhaps it’s a rowdy neighbor, the one with a penchant for disrupting quiet enjoyment of life.  Then there’s a role for pets in getting neighbors riled up.

One would think that Christians are better at these conflicts than non-Christians, at least that’s what non-Christians come to expect; that Christians will be more reasonable, kinder, patient and the like.  But it isn’t true when a Christian’s home is, like everyone else’s, their castle.

Like everyone else in conflict, Christians flip between people-pleasing and aggression.  Whilst the nominal Christian is on their best behavior at church, typically we flip back into human mode everywhere else.  If you don’t believe me, be honest about how you approach other drivers on the road when nobody’s watching.

Peacemaking is the practice of deploying strategies that help us behave biblically.  And never is there a need to behave more biblically than in conflict.

When a neighbor approaches us with a request that we prune a tree overhanging their yard or they will do it and then charge us, we are already in conflict.  We are already on the defensive.  And it really doesn’t matter if we are Christian or not, even if we do know in the deeper recesses of our heart that this is our opportunity to love and serve our neighbor.

Our human default, notwithstanding our faith, is to feel intruded upon, even attacked, especially if the tree is large, and it may cost a significant sum of money to trim, and they want it done promptly.  Especially if money is short and they seem in control legally somehow.

But now to the how...

How often do people respond in kindness when we approach them in kindness?  My experience is that it regularly happens.  But it doesn’t always.  When we respond in humility, acknowledging that we will comply, reasonable neighbors usually reciprocate.  The last thing this sort of situation needs is antagonism from our side of things.

This is where faith comes in.  By entering the conflict with patience, believing the best about the other person, we appear safe to relate with, and most people appreciate that.  It’s a relief.  But it does take faith to respond in humility and patience when we are surprised by a neighbor’s demand.

From a peacemaking perspective it helps when we are connected with the idols in our hearts; those desires we have that quickly become demands, and we all have them.

Those desires become demands that become attitudes of judgement and behaviours of punishment — within seconds.

The need to expend money, for instance, evokes fear in many or even most of us, especially in these very uncertain COVID-19 times.  In the case of the tree, if we are really passionate about trees, and their cooling, environmentally friendly function, we may be in fear that our neighbor has a secret objective to get us to get rid of the tree.  Perhaps we feel pressured.

These and many more things, and indeed the fears undergirding each of these issues, reveal where we still lack trust in God.  It’s okay, indeed best, to accept this.  It’s true that whatever we fear, love, or trust more than God leads us to sin.  It can only end up being bad when we remain there.

Peacemaking has its benefit, indeed its central role, for them and us, as we relate humbly with everyone; the capacity to live cognizant of the plank in our own eye, with no self interest in the little grain of dust in the other person’s eye.

If we truly want to get on with people, we will begin to take our own responsibility.  This is the Christian life, but it’s not a life that is easy, because it requires of us the surrender of sacrifice, opting to burn our idols on the altar of incense as a requiem of worship to our God.

Even when we have reprehensible neighbors, peacemaking gives us the ability to live at peace with them, as far as that is possible, as much as it depends on us.

Image by Clem Onojeghuo