Neighbors

by Janet Scouten

My family and I have been in Italy for less than a week now, and this place has already captured my heart. We’re staying in Siena, a beautiful city in the heart of Tuscany, where my husband will be studying for six weeks. It’s been a wonderful opportunity for our family on so many levels, but the most amazing thing we’ve encountered so far is the incredible community spirit of this place.

Let me just say, this is one of the most exciting times of year to be in Siena. A centuries old horse race—called the Palio—is run every July in the town square, which, in fact, is not a square at all, but instead a large shell-shaped public area in center of town.

This Palio is no simple horse race, as I’m quickly beginning to discover. The race dates back over 800 years and, in recent memory, has been run pretty much every year except during World War II. (Quite understandably, I must say.) The race is between ten of Siena’s contrada (pronounced “con-TRAH-dah”), or neighborhoods, and the winner of the race receives a flag (or “palio”) to commemorate the victory.

I have never seen a place with more neighborhood pride than Siena. Over the past couple of days, as the town gears up for the big race, we have been treated to the sounds of song rising up to our window from the streets below—groups of fresh-faced young men and women, their middle aged parents, and even their school-aged little brothers and sisters, walking through town and singing their hearts out. And they are singing about their neighborhood—or contrada.

(Even now, as I write this entry, I can hear their songs echoing through the streets. And it’s absolutely beautiful. It truly feels like I’m on the set of some huge, glorious opera.)

Each of Siena’s neighborhoods is represented by a flag with traditional mascots and colors, and these flags are flown from every building imaginable. Some of the flags have the usual sorts of mascots—the wolf, the panther, the dragon. Some of the others are a bit more whimsical—the hedgehog, the caterpillar, the snail. (I am completely fascinated by the more unlikely animal mascots. I can’t begin to imagine how anyone could show much pride at being in the Snail Contrada. But—oh,no— those guys are tough! And they love their snails!)

Siena’s contrada are not something new—much like the race, they have been around for hundreds upon hundreds of years, and—to my understanding—are a feature unique to Siena. The sense of place and community and family in this city goes back for countless generations, and you can see this in how the love of contrada is passed on from the old to the young.

In this week before the big race, every neighborhood holds a series of community dinners—with long wooden tables lining the cobblestoned streets—and each night a different segment of the contrada is in charge of making the meal. One night, the mothers make and serve the meal; the next night, the fathers, then the teenagers, the grandparents, and even the younger children (with help from their parents, of course) all take a turn at serving their neighbors.

(The night before the race, my own family has been invited to attend one of these dinners, and I am over the moon with excitement at the prospect of sharing in one of these amazing meals. Apparently, we won’t need to eat for days afterwards…)

But aside from the thrill of the horse race (which, by the way, is forbidden to place bets on) and the fun of sharing a meal, or even marching through the streets singing your head off, there is a greater meaning to all of these festivities.

As one of my husband’s teachers explained: If you ask a Sienese about the purpose of Siena’s contrada, he will tell you, “It’s simple: the contradas are for families.”

He went on to tell a story about a man in one of the contradas who was an alcoholic. This man was completely ruined by alcohol. He wasn’t a good provider, and he certainly wasn’t a good father to his children. The people in his neighborhood knew this, and they made great efforts to help his wife and children when times got rough. They also encouraged the man toward sobriety and rewarded him after a year of staying sober with the great honor of marching their contrada’s horse into town square.

 When I heard this story, my heart just swelled.

These people love each other, and they hold each other up. They watch out for each other, and they encourage each other when times are rough. They hold each other to a higher standard, as shown by Siena’s impressively low crime rate and, in particular, their low rates of child delinquency.

(My guess is that a kid couldn’t sneeze without some old Italian neighbor lady running up and giving him a tissue. And from the stories I’ve heard, they can’t get away with much else either.)

Throughout the week, I’ve tried to come up with something back in America that comes even close to this level of community, and the only thing I could think of was the church. And, of course, that’s how church should be. We are called to take care of each other and watch out for each other. We are called to encourage each other when times are rough, and hold each other to a higher standard—God’s standard.

But when I imagine this same kind of love and caring pouring out of our individual church doors into our neighborhoods, communities, cities and even our state, I can only imagine what an impact that would have.

What if we all knew our neighbors as well as we know our church friends? What if we knew them and prayed for them and talked with them and spent time with them simply because they were our neighbors? What if we got together and played neighborhood games of soccer or softball or even kickball? What if we started a neighborhood dinner that included everyone—old and young, single and married, rich and poor? And what if, when we knew the couple down the street was having a particularly hard year, we offered to watch their kids so they could have a night out?

What if we watched out for them as if they were our own?

True, the likelihood that any of us will experience a neighborhood spirit like the age-old contrada of Siena is pretty slim. After all, they’ve had a major headstart on us. But, unlike the Palio, this isn’t a race or a competition. And if we can learn something like this from an age-old culture that works, then perhaps it’s something we should try to recapture for our own.

After all, we want to make South Carolina a great place to raise families. We want it to be a place where children feel secure and loved and taken care of. And, aside from making sure the families within our own walls are taken care of, what an amazing impact we could have by expanding that care to our entire neighborhood.

“You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
-Leviticus 19:18b