Love thy neighbour

 

When Jesus said "love thy neighbour" He did not specify which neighbour we should love. Is it the one living on the left of our house? Or the right? Or the one whose house is opposite in the street or behind our house?

Or indeed the one living five houses down the road from us? Because it is he I am having problems with. 

In my front garden I have put a statue of Superman. It is life-size and made of marble. It has professionally been installed there by professional statue installers. It is on my property. It has been there for about three weeks now. No one has complained.

Except ... the neighbour living five houses down the road. 

At first he wrote me a letter which he put through my letter box. It said that the statue was an eye-sore and should be removed. He did not have the courage to come and speak to me. I ignored the letter.

A few days later he saw me in the front garden as I got home from work. He asked me if I got his letter and I said that I threw it away. He said the statue brought down the tone of the neighbourhood. I pointed out that another house down the road has two lions on either side of their front gate. Another house has a fountain and a statue of a naked woman with water splashing all over her. They are also made of white marble like my statue. Will he object to them too?

He replied that those statues were art. Mine was an eye-sore. It is not classical in design. He added that people often put lions outside their doors, and statues of nudes either ladies or of Michelangelo's David or similar in style. These are considered stylish. Whereas no one has ever put a Superman with his hand raised to the sky and about to fly. 

I politely bid him good day and went in my house. The next day I received a letter from his solicitor threatening to take me to Court for lowering the tone and house prices in my area with my Superman statue. I was asked to remove it at once or they will file a case against me.

I went to see my solicitor. He was not there. Another solicitor was there instead. I had my doubts about him as soon as I saw him.

Instead of having a handkerchief out of the breast pocket of his jacket he had a KFC chicken leg instead. Now I like KFC, but there is a place and time for everything. And putting a chicken leg in your top pocket whilst meeting a client is neither the place nor the time. 

He stood up to greet me and realised he had a packet of French fries potatoes stuck to his bottom. He had obviously left it on the chair and then sat on it. He took it off and put it in his drawer "to eat later" as he said. Apparently, he was not expecting me to come in and was having lunch because he was too busy.

Then he asked me, "Do you know how to spell jurisprudence?"

I shook my head. He said he did not know what it means but it would sound good in a legal letter he was writing.

Eventually, we discussed my case. He advised me to turn the argument or debate away from the statue and side-track it into a discussion as to what is art.

Is Michelangelo's David art? How about a statue of Mickey Mouse? Or how about Rodin's "The Kiss" with a naked man and woman kissing each other? Would it be appropriate to have that in my front garden? What if, instead of Rodin's statue I had a large bigger than life-size painting/mural or photo on my wall of two nude people in that pose? Would my neighbour approve of it or say it is not art?

"Tell him you will remove the statue of Superman with a beard and glasses to make him resemble you, and you will replace it with Rodin's The Thinker. You know the one? A naked man sitting on a toilet," he concluded with a smile.

"What is art?" he asked with a wry grin, "What is truth? What is beauty? What is a KFC chicken leg?"

I left him and wrote a polite letter to my neighbour's solicitor (five houses away) asking him what is art anyway and suggesting that I will remove the statue and replace it with another one of Rodin's Kiss.

He replied the next day saying there is no need to remove my Superman statue.