Did you grow up on Sesame Street like I did? Then perhaps you too know the song: Oh, who are the people in your neighborhood? In your neighborhood? In your neighborhood? Say, who are the people in your neighborhood? The people that you meet each day It’s an outdated song because we don’t meet the people in our neighborhood each day. At least I don’t. I live in Winter Springs Village. It has green spaces, a community pool and mailbox area, and front porches on every house. My family has the smaller sized home—a bungalow—and our houses sits on a zero lot line. That means I can almost reach out and touch my neighbor’s house. And I still don’t know my neighbors. We live in an age of looking down at our phones, electric garage door openers, and minding our own business. Gone is the neighborhood economy (“May I borrow X?”) and the front porch leisure while kids play on the sidewalk. With the pandemic, talking to strangers is more than odd—it’s hazardous. Is this a problem? Not for some, but it is for me. Because God tells me to love my neighbor.

“And Who is my neighbor?” WHY DOES HE DO IT? Two days a week, our trash goes out to the side of the road. On one of those days the recyclable containers are added. Once the cans are out, they are forgotten, even if the big noisy collection truck is heard. Later in the day, the emptied cans appear near our garage. Who brings them up? It has to be one of our neighbors.