I liked not liking Darth Vader.  The way he wheezed.  The way he picked up subordinates by the throat with his mind powers.  The way he surrounded himself with British actors and dim lighting.

Then George Lucas had him take off his mask.  There, under the shroud of evil, was an old man, a father struggling to breathe, asking his son for forgiveness.  Suddenly Darth Vader was a dad, a real human being, a mix of good and bad like the rest of us, and a lot harder to dislike.

The first step to creating a holy war is to completely vilify the enemy, rid him of all humanity and rid yourself of all empathy.  Take away his back story, his perspective and rationale, his circumstance, his face if you can.  Mask him in every evil deed he’s done, every hateful word he’s spoken, every wrong perpetrated against you and don’t – don’t ever – take that mask off.  Wrap yourself in the warm black-and-white blankets of hatred and war and sleep well knowing you’re just and the other guy is everything but.

A couple weeks ago some neighbors of ours circled up the lawn chairs in their front yard and enjoyed some cold adult beverages and conversation with a couple friends of theirs.  A black sports car sat in their driveway, windows down, CD player pumping hip-hop and rap into the cul-de-sac.  Five feet away, on the other side of the fence, my kids sat in a blown-up swimming pool.  Penelope danced and Gresham drummed on the water’s surface.  It was just another near-perfect day in the old cul-de-sac.

Then the lyrics took a turn for the worse – a boasting rapper detailed what he could do to pleasure a woman and what he could do to any man who crossed him.  (What plot ties the two resumes together I’m not sure, but that’s beside the point.)

I was out of town.  The way I remember Becky telling it, she crossed the yard and asked our neighbors if they could turn that song off or turn it down since there were so many little ears listening.

The woman next-door stood from her folding chair and raised her voice at Becky, telling her she could take her kids and her pool somewhere else – like to our backyard.  Becky was surprised and embarrassed. “OK,” Becky said, and she and the kids drained the pool, drug it to the back yard and filled it up with water again.  Becky began crying out of frustration, doing her best not to let the kids see a tear.

Since we moved in a couple years ago, our next door neighbors haven’t spoken more than a few words to us, our schedules are pretty opposite – though they’ve never been unfriendly either.  We’ve been pretty neighborly I think – baked them things, taken their kids on outings to a movie or the fair or to a church activity for kids.  I’ve played ball with their son more afternoons than I can count (He usually beats me).  We bought them groceries once when they weren’t working and we thought they could use some help. So it was a shock that the first whole sentences spoken to us by our seemingly sedate neighbors were so loud and blunt.  Becky was hurt.

Other neighbors eventually got involved that day.  The music was turned up.  There was more yelling.  The police were called – which was really unnecessary.  Twice, actually.  It was ugly. We don’t what all went on actually.  Becky abandoned the pool before all that went down, took the kids inside and stayed out of it, unsure really of what to do to next but certain some distance was probably a good idea.

That night she called me.  I was in a hotel room in Florida.  It’s hard being away from her and the kids – harder still when anything goes wrong while I’m away. She told me what had been shouted at her and what she wished she’d said back.  Have you ever had the perfect thing to say come to your mind way too late? I told her I thought she should call our neighbors and say every word of it.  So she did.  “This is Becky from next door,” she said. “I’m sorry things turned out the way they did.  I’m not angry at you.  I want you to know I had nothing to do with the police getting involved.  We don’t handle things that way.  I’d rather talk through things with you so if you want to talk please call me or I’ll catch you in the front yard sometime this week maybe and we can talk then.  Let me know how I can make things right.”

The next day our neighbor softly and kindly called Becky over to the fence and apologized.  She was a different person – the quiet neighbor we’d always known.  She explained that she had been sick and life was full of frustrations on the day she got angry at Becky, but she admitted that was no excuse for the way she’d behaved.  She apologized for the music being so loud and Becky said she didn’t mind the volume because we love music – it was the lyrics she didn’t want the kids to hear and repeat.  Our neighbor nodded in agreement and said, “I here ya” – It feels good to be heard. There was real dialogue, voices lowered, smiles all around, and it seemed to me – I was eavesdropping – that our neighbor and Becky both understood each other a little better all of a sudden. Then the conversation turned to kids and Summer schedules and they stood there in the side yard for over an hour, like neighors, surrounded by children watching and learning how to make amends.

The next day the dad from next door offered to loan us his mower.  He apologized, not just for the argument between his wife and mine but for not talking to us sooner.  He thanked us for being good neighbors. And it’s only been a few days since but we’re all still acting like good neighbors now. In fact, it’s no act.  There hasn’t been any profanity played in the cul-de-sac, they’ve offered to share their beer, they wave at us with a smile.  We’re not best friends, and we may never be – who knows? – but we’re not enemies.

I’ve learned a lot about my neighbors in the last week or so too.  Yesterday, for instance, I found out my neighbor lost his job (Update: He’s got a new job. Great news!) A house payment, two kids, a wife, a new black sports car (I want) with quite the sweet-sounding factory sound system and no job at a time when jobs are hard to find.  I can’t stop thinking about how difficult that must be – how scary that would be for me.  I empathize.  That’s what happens when the mask comes off I guess.

Turns out we’re all human.  We all have bad days.  We all say (or type) the wrong thing some times.  Remembering that makes it harder to be angry and easier to forgive doesn’t it?