Still not gonna talk about the current news.

Instead we’re gonna talk about how I ended up at a Bible study in Austin.

Somehow a man who was brought up staunchly Hindu and now refuses to use the label ended up living down the street from the local ISKON center and next to a senior citizen who is both an Evangelical Christian and a US Air Force Veteran.

Both our homes are just a little younger than I am; he was one of the first people to move into the neighborhood when it was still being built.

And for about two decades, he would diligently go out back by the creek and cut back the brush and spray down the poison oak to keep a clearing open.

Unfortunately his health slowly got worse. So around the first Texas freeze, he wasn’t able to keep cleaning it up.

And over time it compounded, the dead brush piled up; weeds, vines, and thorns slowly filled in the gaps.

Around the time I moved into the neighborhood, his health was on an upswing and he was out back working again.

After a couple weeks I was taking my pup out for their walk on a Friday, and he came up. Man’s sharp and led with there’s a lot of large dry kindling out back and I’m concerned it’s a fire risk. I’m gonna be out back tomorrow morning to chip away at it, do you want to help?

Unfortunately I haven’t given my other grandfather much space in my writing. But, for my entire memory of him, he’s lived in a Swaminarayan mandir. Arguably he’s also quietly kept it running smoothly for all these years but that’s someone else’s story to tell. Anyways, any time that he would make the time to spend time with his kids’ and grandkids’. He will always find work to do. Gardening. Laundry. Cleaning. You name it, significantly cooler than an Optimus robot.

So when I see an old man doing manual labor. I am going to help him.

And thus began a fun routine. Over the weekend, I’d go out back to clear up the mess and when his health was willing, he’d join. And along the way, teach me about maintaining chainsaws and other fun tools. Along the way I even managed to convince some coworkers to occasionally join in by calling it a free full body exercise.

Finally making my way over to the by-line.

Early one week over the spring, I wrapped up my work for the day and went out to continue dismantling my rotting deck. Mosquitos were starting to come out in droves so I had to go back in.

I hadn’t eaten dinner yet and my neighbor had invited me a couple times to the Bible study at his church and would always mention that they usually had free pizza. Today happened to be the day they met.

So I texted him and asked if it was still on.

He said it was but he’s still recovering from his surgery, and asked if I could go to let him know what he missed.

Now I wasn’t a complete stranger to the New Testament.

I had a friend who was on the “external affairs” team in the Asian Students Alliance at Pitt who ran Bible studies on the bottom floor of the William Pitt Union that I’d occasionally swing by on. Interesting fellow, he was a traveling Evangelist for a while after undergrad before going back for graduate school.

And I briefly attempted a degree in Religious Studies; I took a Bible as literature course where we went through the Old and New Testaments.

Personally, I find the Sermon On The Mount and the broader Gospel of Matthew quite moving.

But anyways, I attended. The group had just finished up the Gospel of John the prior week, and were starting the Acts of the Apostles. I think we made it to the end of chapter 3 where Peter heals the beggar.

Afterwards he came over, gave my pup ample attention, and we then went over the verses.

The following week, he was feeling better so we went together.

Like I said earlier, not interested in labels. But what I am interested in is making the honest effort to understand each other. We don’t live in faraway places, we live next to our neighbors.

Much like my family, there’s a lot we do not agree on. But there’s also a lot we do. And that’s where the bonds are made.

We don’t make sustainable long term change with some big flashy moment, it happens over all those quiet moments of people working together compounding over time. It took almost half a year for us just to get the back in a state we could build something cool out of. And it wasn’t Rama who built the bridge to Sita, it was all the animals coming together, even the small squirrel carrying the sand to fill in the gaps.