“Love your neighbor as yourself.”
And who is my neighbor? Everyone I see. This little blue dot in the universe is my neighborhood, and everyone who lives on it is my neighbor.
“Love your neighbor as yourself.” Well, some days I don’t love myself very much, so it’s easy to “love” my neighbor in the same way I “love” myself — that screwup? that fool? Oh yeah, I’m surrounded by screwups and fools almost as bad as me. And those monsters who want to run my life and blow up their enemies? Oh yeah, I “love” them to pieces.
I guess that’s the reason for “the first and greatest commandment.” On the days when “Love your neighbor as yourself” means feeling the same about others as I do about the fool in the mirror, I can lean on the law that says “love God, the God of love,” and if I can’t muster the energy to love those humans, at least I can ask God to shine His infinite love through this broken vessel.
Some days I look around in frustration and think, “What the heck am I doing?” If I’m thinking straight (which can be a 50/50 proposition), I hit the reset and reboot button on my attitude, turn to the next person I meet, and say, “Hello, neighbor.”
