They were really upset with me because I had stopped outside of their house to drop something off to their neighbour. They were driving home and when they arrived I was blocking what they considered to be their spot. I had a trailer attached to the car and they could see that it was going to be difficult for me to move but that didn’t matter to them and so I put down what I was doing to move.
This all happened in a small car park outside of some new build houses. The bays weren’t marked with house numbers and there were 2 others empty. The only way I could get the trailer close enough to unload was to park it longways down the center of the car park and unfortunately this blocked a few bays which included what they considered to be their space.
All of this reminded me of a sign that I saw recently.
The irony of the private beach sign in that moment was that the post that it was on was sticking out of the water with no beach in sight, just look at the picture below to see.
There was no beach to be found but someone was sure that the beach that you couldn’t see or get on to was theirs.
I have sympathy with the person wanting to park next to their house and also the beach owner as well. In the first instance it was in an area where parking is very limited and difficult. In the second the sign went on to mention (in smaller wording) Oysters. There was some kind of experiment on the beach regarding the Oysters there and if people kept walking all over it then it was going to make it hard for someone to earn their living.
Anyway, back to the car park. I had just restarted unloading my trailer when another car pulled in (whose space I had now blocked – AARGH) and I ran across and asked if they needed me to move at all. They said that I was blocking their space but they could see that I was busy and so they would park nearby instead.
Sometimes we may have good reason to mark our territory or possessions but often I think people are just too possessive and that we need to chill out a bit.
Jesus taught that we should treat other people in the way we want to be treated.
We may be within our legal rights to demand certain things but is it always the most kind or helpful thing to do?
So, the next time any of us gets on our high horse I hope that we can pause and consider what the view must be like for the person that we are looking down on. How might we feel if we were in their position?
It’s so often actually really easy to make a difference to someone else. At the moment, various organisations are collecting donations for the people affected by the earthquake in Nepal. I can’t give the sort of money necessary to help everyone in need but the amount that I have given has made a real difference together with other donations. If you haven’t donated and would like to then I would encourage you to consider BMS who are distributing the money through organisations that they already work with in Nepal.
BMS are giving our money to local organisations to use and the result is that people will be grateful to those organisations, not to BMS or to us. What matters though is that people are helped.
I hope that we can all choose to be less territorial and possessive in life.
Lets show some grace and share with others.
Honest about my faith 