Back yard vs. Front yard theology

Lately I have been making ends meet by building fences and it has gotten me thinking a lot. It seems that suburban America is captivated by fences. It's not the cheap wooden pickets that we love but what they represent. What is everyone trying to keep out? ....or keep in? Why does the American suburban dream include a white picket fence instead of wide open spaces to roam in? I suspect the business boom with fences has much to do with privitization. Suburbia is a mass of people trying to live a dream and keep something in...or out. On a service trip a few years back I was immersed in the inner city of the town I grew up in. It wasn't the Bronx, but it certainly didn't feel like it was only a few miles from where I had taken shelter in our nice little neighborhood. While on this trip I loved observing the people and their simple, and somewhat strange, way of interacting. My biggest observation; they were front yard people. At the moment of that realization it hit me that I had grown up in a back yard culture in the suburbs, one that valued privacy more than the open-door policy. The people I observed in these inner city neighborhoods were always together pumping tunes from their car, sitting on chairs on the front porch having a Coke, or yelling hello to a neighbor in their yard down the street. I can't imagine these people calling their next door neighbor and making sure it was a good time to stop by. Some of my favorite memories of growing up in Virginia were sitting on the front porch, sweet tea in hand, watching the sunset or playing baseball in the street with my friends. Looking back though, I remember far more family dinners and jam sessions on my guitar in the privacy of the back yard. As Christians there is much danger in living a back yard lifestyle. We cannot privitize our faith, hide it, shelter it, keep it in, or keep it out. People are one of God's greatest gifts to us and often one of His greatest ways of showing us his character. We must live life face to face, and we must be intentional about not being caught hiding from the world in the back yard. I don't believe that we live our life as a spectacle for others to see, but instead we leave our faith open and exposed so that others will feel free to just "stop in" on us in conversation. It gets a little old looking at the wooden fence posts for too long. Try it out, just grab a friend and a few chairs for the front porch and enjoy the view...together.