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Back door living has meant different things to me growing up. As a child, our back door on the farm was where you came and went with your farm boots on, so as not to get the rest of the house dirty. As I grew older, it was where friends would come and go without the dogs barking at the possibility of a stranger at the door. Still, as a college student, it was where I slipped in and out late at night without disturbing the sleeping members of my family. However, I believe that the back door living being referred to here does not require an actual back door, but a state of mind.

I am very thankful for our back door living mindset in Alleluia. In a world where neighbors are viewed more as an interruption than a blessing, and fences are erected to keep everybody in their own space, Alleluia strives to be an alternate society. Our Covenant states, “…He has destroyed our isolation and joined us together…” Thank you, Jesus, that we can live side by side and help each other grow in holiness. What an awesome mindset!

I love the reality of back door living in Community. “A cup of sugar distance,” is what Andy (who grew up in Alleluia Community) calls it. That’s a great concept. Now if I could just put it into practice. I grew up with a barnyard on one side of me, a cemetery on the other, and nothing but farm land as far as the eye could see in between. If my mom needed a cup of sugar, she still had to get in her car and drive to the neighbors. I just didn’t grow up a cup of sugar distance away from anybody. But, I did call Anita Funsch once, and she was so excited to give me a teaspoon of cumin, that she invited me in and gave me the whole jar! And, there was the time that I needed a clothes hanger. I asked Andy to get me some (out  of his closet). He came back from the Wilby’s with two whole bundles! Sarah was just looking for a place to unload all her extras. In back door living, there aren’t givers and takers. There are only receivers! Receivers of the opportunity to bless and to be blessed.

Back door living is the mindset that promotes hospitality. I love living in K-block, where all of our back yards converge into one big playground. Just last week I paused for a minute on my back porch to enjoy the children’s game of ‘ghost in the graveyard,’ when Ray and Rita called over to me from their back porch, inviting me to share a glass of wine. I almost declined just because it wasn’t on my agenda. What nonsense! Remember, there are no givers and takers in back door living, only receivers! And what a blessing I received.

I’m sure Andy could give hundreds of examples g rowing up in Community of back door living, because there are hundreds of opportunities. Tools and children are excellent catalysts when it comes to blessing and being blessed by others. How many men have every tool they need hanging in their shed? How many mothers wind up sharing playground time together? How accessible do we make ourselves to these opportunities?

Dearing helped our family cultivate a back door living mindset. The pace was much slower, providing more opportunities to extend an invitation, or accept one. Several times we changed our dinner menu based on Jerry Germann’s back yard grilling pit. All it took was a little bit of cherry wood smoke and a south breeze to get Andy to add our own meat to the grill. The families then gathered for the next couple of hours, solving the world’s problems over lemonade, and searching out toads. When the meat was declared done, we all returned to our homes for dinner, much more blessed than when we started.

Back door living does not require an actual back door. In fact, we had been living in Dearing for a year before we found out that our front door was actually our back door and vice versa. It’s not the door you use the most, it’s the relationships you cultivate that determine how much back door living you are living.

My favorite example of this happened one day about a year ago, after we just moved to K-block. Chrisje, Nikki and Clare came to my front door, saying they were just “walking through” and wanted to say hi. Clare literally walked through the house and went out the back door. Chrisje and Nikki stayed long enough to give me some strawberries, before they continued on their way out the back door. They said it was faster to go through the house than it was to go around it. Give me a break! Anyone can figure out it would be faster if you didn’t have to stop and say hello to the homeowner. They didn’t save time, they wasted time. Bingo! That’s what it’s all about, wasting time together. I absolutely loved it! Cultivating relationships: it doesn’t have to take long, just a jaunt through the front door and out the back!

It seems to me that the busier our lives get, the more our back door living state of mind is threatened. There is a book titled, Margin by Richard A. Swenson, M.D. I haven’t read the book, so I don’t know what his main objective is, but I do like this description he gives: “…our margins being the space that once existed between ourselves and our limits, suggesting that our current fast-paced lifestyle has eliminated our margin, creating stress, overload and complexity.” In other words, if we live our lives so fast-paced that we don’t have time to waste time together, we will lose our back door living mindset. I believe that is a mindset that Alleluia cannot afford to lose.

So, what can we do to cultivate and reinvest in back door living? I believe the key is to revisit what predisposed us to this mindset in the first place. Make ourselves more visible. Put a bench in your yard and use it. Take a walk with your family after dinner. Get outside and linger with your neighbors. Build margins back into your life, so that when your neighbor invites you to sit with them, you have time to accept. Back door living is a very personal thing. You don’t acquire it through osmosis, and being a member of Alleluia doesn’t automatically grant you the experience. It takes individuals like you and me to take the time to make the time to make it work. And I am so thankful that you have all done that for me. God bless you all.