We are in the season of the lawn signs. Yesterday, I was talking with a friend who worried over whether she should talk to her Another Catholic Voting NO neighbor because they had just put up the No sign and it kind of shocked her. While we expect to see political signs for Dems, Repubs, and Libertarians, I have to admit that it is much more startling to see these non-partisan - strong issues - signs that force discussions - at least in our heads.
This is the season of the lawn signs. What do they prompt? They prompt us to become bean counters - we see how many neighbors agree with us (or at least seem to). We think that a certain sign may mean that neighbor A will not be talking to neighbor B for a long time.
We naturally wonder whether to fight or take flight from neighbors expressing points of view that surprise us. Like my friend, we wonder whether to talk to our neighbor about their sign - perhaps they are a bit confused....So we wonder about it every day until that
darn sign is taken down. We ask ourselves should it be today or tomorrow. Most of us opt for tomorrow even though that day never fits our schedules. But shouldn't we - after all we are our neighbor's keepers aren't we?
We used to put up lawn signs too; but decided somewhere along the line they were just too much in our neighbors' faces even though I was raised to not to miss a fight. But it seemed like the signs seemed to put more distance between us and the neighbors. Our signs sat in front of their big windows day in and day out until they suddenly blew away. Do you know how many of our lawn signs just blew away? Too many to count. Their disappearances were as sudden as several of our bashed in car doors that just seemed to happen without explanation. These incidents turned us a bit suspicious of our neighbors.
And so, we began to wonder what our lawn signs said to our neighbors. Did they say, Hi there, how are you today? Or did they say "Hey neighbor I want you to vote for _____ (my candidate). And if I had two signs did it suggest that I thought the neighbors needed more reminders?
Yard signs bother me today - they make me want to yank them out of my neighbors yards like I presume they did to ours. They show how unable we are to really talk about important matters. They are like the little dog who barks and barks but doesn't seem to accomplish much of anything other than annoy us. In my opinion, yard signs represent UN-neighborliness.
Wouldn't it be nice if we could put up artistic signs that say what we believe and why. They would be akin to giving a witness talk but in technicolor. I'd like a billboard on my lawn showing why why I stand for marriage between man and woman. It would picture me, Dave and our 7 kids and their 13 kids along with blank space reserved for those yet to come along. At least, my neighbor would likely better understand why we believe the way we do .
Pithy one liner signs really don't explain much about us to our neighbors. Perhaps this is a new business opportunity - making witness lawn signs - what do you think?
