Good neighbors are meant to think locally and to act globally they say. That what we do is meant to have a positive outcome as far as we can reach. Just how broadly is our reach to be? I have always felt that we are meant to do all we can for as long as we can. How is it we define our role as a good neighbor? Not only in taking care of the physical aspects of the property we live (either as owners or renter), but the street where we live as well.
I talk a lot here about Eastern philosophy, but it is mainly an avenue to demonstrate our responsibility to nature as what they have said for thousands of years. that we man and woman for that matter are but one of ten thousand things. What does that mean to you – to us as people. We are meant to be the guardians of all things found in nature. Nature is not simply here for man to exploit and benefit at the detriment to all he finds. We are to do all we can enhance nature to both our benefit and all we find in our environment in which we live.
Over forty years ago here in Springfield, I was a founder of the Westside Community Betterment Association. We focused on clean-up projects, painting and fixing up houses in the neighborhood, plus a number of other projects trying to instill a sense of ownership and responsibility. We did what should serve as a model neighborhood plan for the city and other neighborhood since that time.
I went on to later become a city planner first the Massachusetts and supervised a new master plan for the city where I worked, then later was a city planner/neighborhood specialist for a city in Florida where I focused on getting people to see beyond their property doing neighborhood planning. Afterwards, I taught English in China before returning and retiring here to Springfield.
Everything I do is to help people to see beyond themselves. Rather it is landscape and garden design, giving away thousands of plants every year, showing by example how to improve our own lives by improving the lives to those around us…and that’s not just people. It’s by growing native plants in our yard and being a caretaker to wild animals, of the bees and butterflies, etc., etc. Finally, when I was a neighborhood specialist doing master planning, my primary focus was in getting people to see beyond themselves and what I used to call their fence line or sidewalk in front of their house. We live by example as a model for others. We are not perfect, but over time we gain an institutional memory on how we should live in the environment in which we live.
We are stewards of both the land and nature and finding the peace within ourselves that says we have done all that we can while we are here. This is why we are here and will forever be seen as enough. There is a part each of us are meant to play, we are here to find what it is.
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