Our Neighbors’ Junk

An ice storm devastated our city earlier this year, and the cleanup process has taken weeks that are turning into months. At our home, it started by clearing the fallen tree limbs and repairing the damage to our home. After professional tree cutters pruned the trees in our yard, those branches were cleared, as well. All the branches, well over a ton for our yard alone, were piled at our street curb, and several weeks passed before city crews came through and hauled them off. The huge machines couldn’t get it all, of course, so yesterday I spent the morning raking and bagging the leftovers.

But that’s not all. Pine trees in the yards of two of our neighbors line the fences of our backyard, and those neighbors took a different approach to their cleanup. The limbs that fell because of the ice storm were collected and hauled off, but they didn’t have the trees pruned. So branches that didn’t fall – branches caught by other branches or that didn’t break off completely – remain high up in those trees.

When I look at those branches as they hang precariously above the fence, I suspect they they’ll fall onto the power lines and knock out our power. I suspect that they’ll eventually land on my side of the fence. I suspect that I’ll clean up my neighbors’ junk. And I know I’ll have the temptation to toss the limbs over the fence into my neighbors’ yards.

This morning, now that some of those limbs have fallen into our yard and suspicion and reality collided, I had this thought: There are lots of times in life when my neighbor’s junk spills into my life and I need to clean it up. If I’m filled with the love of my Savior, I’ll see the need and respond to it instinctively – out of love. If not, I’ll see the need and worry about how it will affect me and complain that I have to “fix” someone else’s problems. I might end up doing it, but more out of duty than love. That’s better than not doing it or tossing the problem back at my neighbor. But it still leaves me with the inner realty that I have my own junk. And I’m thankful that my Savior never hesitates to clean it up for me.