Seldom set foot in your neighbor's house -- too much of you, and he will hate you (Proverbs 25:17).

We recently had to replace the only toilet that we had in our house.  And since we were ripping out the old commode anyway, we figured we might as well replace some floorboards that had gotten a little bit saggy.  And since we were replacing some of the floorboards anyway, we figured we might as well put in a entirely new tile floor (updating the room's appearance as well as its cleanability)... But naturally, all of this meant that we were looking at a good two- or three-day project.  And thus, we were looking at a good two or three days without our own toilet:  a family of five without its own toilet.

As we planned and prepared for the big project, we figured out a plan in which we could get all of the necessary renovations to fit into a single 48-hour period.  And we figured that it would probably be best to align these 48 hours with two school days, and most preferably with a Thursday (since the kids have a regularly-scheduled after-school activity on that day).  But any way we looked at it, we were going to have at least one evening, night, and morning at home without a toilet.  So we asked our neighbors if they might be willing to let us share their toilet for just such a time period -- and they were, in fact, very welcoming.  They even told us that we could let ourselves in with a spare set of keys, if we ever needed to use the facilities while they weren't home.  But still, we hoped that we would have to use their toilet only when absolutely necessary -- because we knew that such circumstances were ripe opportunities for stressing our relationship.  So we figured out ways to encourage the kids to use the toilets at school, and to go out to McDonald's for dinner where another public-access toilet would be available to us, and even to pee in the shower when necessary.

Even so, the moment came when our little five-year-old needed to go.  She needed to go "#2" -- and the need was increasingly urgent.  So we stepped outside, walked a few meters down the sidewalk, and rang the bell at our neighbors' house.  Nobody was home.  So we let ourselves in, and our little girl sat on the toilet while I stood out in the hallway.  I was nervous that our neighbors were going to come in while we were there -- which would have been a little bit awkward -- but the house remained still.  After ten or fifteen minutes of grunting, singing, and insisting that she needed "just one more minute," we were finally finished and able to retreat to our toiletless house.  But within another half-hour or so, our eight-year-old needed to deliver "een grote boodschap" (I love the Dutch euphemism here -- "a big message!").  So we repeated the process from earlier in the hour, again with no sign of our neighbors.  But after another 20 or 25 minutes of grunting, singing, and storytelling (our son has incredible toilet endurance), I was becoming increasingly aware of the unpleasant odor that had filled their home -- and I was increasingly nervous that they would walk in at any moment, probably just at the awkward moment when the poop performance was climaxing with an unusual rendition of "Beat It."  I looked around for some kind of odor spray, or a candle and a match.  I pleaded with my son to finish his business.

And that's when I remembered the quote by Benjamin Franklin:  "Fish and houseguests smell after three days."

I thought of the smell that we were leaving for our neighbors and couldn't help but laugh at the irony and absurdity of it all.  In the end, we were able to clear out well before our neighbors arrived home for the evening -- and we never did hear any complaint about any of it.  But it was an amusing experience, at any rate, and an effective illustration of Proverbs 15:17, where it says to "Seldom set foot in your neighbor's house -- too much of you, and he will hate you."

I think this Proverb is an interesting consideration to hold in-tension with the New Testament ideal of community.  In the book of Acts, of course, the early believers "were together and had everything in common."  They regularly "broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts."  But how did they keep from hating each other?  How did they keep from developing that sufferable "smell" of over-extended welcomes?  I honestly haven't figured this out completely.  However, I do think that there's some element of balance that's required -- even in the most advanced forms of community.  Private times and family times do have value, even if they necessitate a sense of temporary withdrawal from community.  This is, in fact, a biblical thing to do.  Community and integration is good.  But only to a certain point.  Each person and each household has to decide for itself what its "date of expiration" might be.  And in the absence of any clear communication on the subject (and sometimes even when a message of welcome is being sent, as a result of cultural cues), it's probably best to err on the side of seldom setting foot in your neighbor's house.