Romans 12:18...Peace

I finally have something positive and worthwhile to blog about! It just came to me tonight! Let me fill you in a little bit about something that's been troubling me for the past few weeks. We have an Australian Shepherd named, Sydney, which we adopted last September from a family. He is just over one year old now. Sydney is a very loving dog and has been a fun, yet challenging at times, addition to our Williams Zoo Crew! One problem we have noticed with Sydney, however, is that he has developed a fear of most other dogs. It all started one day when we took him to a local dog park when he was 6 months old. He was friendly to all the other dogs in the dog park at first. But, within the first 20 minutes or so, a group of larger dogs started asserting their dominance over Sydney and were circling him and forced him under a picnic table out of his fear. Since then, he now barks aggressively and quite loudly whenever he sees any other dog, large or small. It's a defensive and protective mechanism he has developed. I can't say that I blame him. The old saying, "his bark is worse than his bite" holds true for Sydney...he actually doesn't even bite. But, the way he barks loudly and forcefully whenever he feels threatened sure would make someone who doesn't know him feel wary.

We have a next-door neighbor who recently brought a Yorkshire Terrier into their own home. They are very small dogs, but they sure do make up for it in their aggressive barking, as well! Anytime Sydney and the neighbor's dog happen to be out in their own backyards at the same time, inevitably one of them starts barking and gets the other one going, too! It drives Sydney crazy and he literally will push against our wood fence to try and get through into the neighbor's yard. Since our fence is 8 years old, it's very weather-worn and now some of the boards start breaking off loose when he rams the fence in one of his crazed episodes. He will poke his head through the opening if a board is knocked loose. This, of course, scares the neighbor if she happens to be out in her backyard when it happens. She's afraid he's gonna break through the whole fence and come attacking someday. I don't blame her for feeling a little scared, perhaps. But, we have told her that Sydney is not vicious and is not an attack-dog, by any means. He simply feels that he can ward off any potential bullies by barking loudly. She's met him before and she knows that he is not an attack-type of dog. We have 3 kids and would never own a dog like that anyway. He's actually a big baby. Scott is also sure to promptly nail back any loose boards whenever it has happened (it's only been about 3 times). Well, a few weeks ago, we got home late at night from LIFE group and after picking up the kids from my mother's house from babysitting and Scott let Sydney out back to go potty before bedtime. Unbeknownst to us, the neighbor must have let her little dog out in her backyard around the same time. Sure enough, Sydney starting going nuts when their dog started yipping. He pushed through one of the loose boards on the fence and it scared the neighbor as she was back there trying to get her dog to come back in the house. I heard her scream while I was coming out of the bathroom in our house. I didn't even know Scott had let Sydney out back at the time. I then heard our neighbor yell something like, "This is getting ridiculous! If you don't do something about that dog, I'm gonna call animal control!" Scott brought Sydney in right away and decided not to yell anything back over the fence since it was already after 11:00pm on a weeknight. He figured he'd let her "cool off" and try to smooth things over in the morning when he would go over and fix the loose board on the fence. Well, not 5 minutes later, the neighbor came over and rang our doorbell. I let him answer the door because it was late at night, I was already getting ready for bed and was not in the mood for any kind of confrontation so late at night. Things did not go well when Scott answered the door. Heated words were thrown around and in a matter of minutes, things went from sour to even worse! We had always tried to be friendly with our neighbor and had never gotten into an argument with her before. Apparently, she didn't like the fact that Scott was not letting her yell at him on our front doorstep late at night. She stomped off and ended up calling the police! Never before has a neighbor called the cops on us for any reason whatsoever! I was so steamed about the whole thing! Why would she overreact like that and call the police over a simple matter that could have simply been handled like two mature adults with some compromise and mutually respecting discussion? It was so unnecessary for her to call the police. After all, we hadn't even done anything wrong anyway. The police even acted like it was ridiculous that she called them out at 11:30pm at night for something as little as this...a dog that broke through part of our own fence and scared her. After they questioned both parties for their sides of the story, it was clear that no crime had been committed and that there was no really good reason for them to have been involved. It was also apparent to them that she had provoked the entire situation by yelling over the fence and then coming to our doorstep yelling late at night, escalating things way beyond what was necessary. They simply told Scott that next time she comes onto our doorstep late at night like that and starts yelling at him, we have the right to ask her to leave our property. That was it!

After that night, I was so steamed about the fact that she felt it was necessary to involve the police over almost nothing. I was also mad that she apparently had no qualms about turning our neighborly relationship sour so quickly, even to the point that our kids and her kids would no longer be able to play with each other as they have before, simply because of some silly argument that would now exist between us as neighbors. Truly, it seemed to me that she had gone way overboard and was not expressing any humility over the situation at all. Now, I must add that 99% of the time in matters where I find myself involved in some sort of conflict, I am usually the first to try and keep the peace. I can't stand conflict. It makes me really uncomfortable and through the years, I have noticed that I am much less inclined to hold grudges over things as I used to do when I was younger. Life is simply too short and you really spend so much energy trying to hold onto negative feelings towards others, that it is quite draining. I can name several instances in recent years where I have taken the high road and always been the one to initiate peace whenever a disagreement or conflict of some kind has reared its ugly head. But, for some reason, this particular incident just irked me to the point where I felt for the first time in a LONG time that I just didn't want to be the pursuer of peace anymore. This matter simply crossed the line to me. I had reached my limit of bending over backwards for someone else simply to keep the peace, even when I felt I had done nothing wrong. Since that night a few weeks ago, we had pretty much decided that we would not be speaking to our neighbor unless she happened to approach us first. We were hurt and angry over the situation and just felt that we didn't want to have to take the first step in order to reconcile our friendship. Yes, I know that pretty much goes against much of what Christ teaches us to do when it comes to others. We asked our LIFE group to pray about it last week, as it was something that still didn't sit well in our hearts.

Well, this morning several cars in our neighborhood, including both of ours, were broken into in the middle of the night while parked in our driveway. Luckily, for us, nothing was actually stolen (we don't keep things valuable & worth stealing in our vehicles) and no windows were broken. It was simply our faults for not locking our doors when we parked our vehicles last night. As God would have it, our neighbor came knocking on our door this evening to discuss the rash of car break-ins that took place overnight on our street. We hadn't spoken to her since the dog incident. Scott took the first step in seizing the opportunity to bring up the previous situation and apologized for anything he had done to make the situation worse. He also apologized that the dog scared her by breaking the loose board (which he has since fixed). Fortunately, it seemed that God has been working on her heart, as well, to humble her attitude towards the situation and she apologized, as well, for her part in overreacting over the whole scenario that evening. They briefly talked things through and I am actually sitting here tonight a bit amazed at how God has allowed a negative incident such as our cars getting broken into, to act as a catalyst for making peace with our neighbor. I am also thankful that, of course, we actually didn't have anything stolen from our cars or any broken windows and such. But, I am more thankful that indeed, God seemed to hear our prayers over the situation and for once, someone else initiated the first steps in pursuing peace. I'm sure the car break-in situation was the perfect excuse for our neighbor to come over and begin taking steps to make amends with us. I just wanted to share this story with my readers because I think it is an everyday example of how God can work good from a bad situation and at the same time, peace can be restored between people. There may still be some hope left yet in this crazy, fallen world!

Romans 12:18..."If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone."

1Peter 3:11..."He must run from evil and do good; he must seek peace and pursue it."

Notice the word 'pursue' in reference to peace in 1Peter 3:11...the act of pursuing something means the act of almost chasing it down. It involves action and is not really a passive thing. So, to pursue peace means that we need to actively be looking for ways to seek it when the time and place calls for it...even when we don't want to...lol!!!

Author's side note: When Scott went over to repair the broken board after the last incident, he did make sure to put in very thick screws/nails across every single board on that side of the fence (tops and bottoms included). He also put in several 2x4's across the bottom to make the fence virtually indestructible. So now we have "Fort Knox" on that side of the fence, which should eliminate any chance of Sydney knocking loose any more boards. We're also trying to be more vigilent about when we let him outside now and if the neighbor's dog is out as well, we monitor Sydney to make sure he doesn't get all worked up and go crazy. We figure this will also help maintain peace and some sort of order. :o)