"It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood."

Neighborly Love

“Love Thy Neighbor

Thy homeless neighbor.

Thy Muslim neighbor.

Thy black neighbor.

Thy gay neighbor.

Thy immigrant neighbor.

Thy Jewish neighbor.

Thy Christian neighbor.

Thy atheist neighbor.

Thy disabled neighbor.

Thy addicted neighbor.”

Monica Trujillo (t-shirt on Pintrest)

          Several yards in my neighborhood display love your neighbor signs—one of the many things I like about this neighborhood. It’s multicultural, multi-racial, and multi-orientational (is that a word?). It’s a neighborhood where people walk their dogs and stop to chat. One of them even assured me yesterday that they have plenty of toilet paper if I need any. Different times call for different measures, I guess!

          My news feed shows a few celebrities donating cash in large quantities to food banks and schools providing lunch bags to kids on furlough for the coronavirus. And you can volunteer to assist with wiping down public spaces if you’re of a certain age and healthy. This is the upside of our national disaster response to the coronavirus. It shows us that Americans still have great hearts. I never doubted it, of course. We always step up when there is real need.

          When we need to, we forget our differences; our political divide, our “issues.” We pull together and support each other. Maybe we don’t sing to one another from our balconies, like the beautiful Italians, but we would if we could. Where do they get those incredible voices? I just wish we could do all these things without the disaster.

          Hubert Humphrey said, “The impersonal hand of government can never replace the helping hand of a neighbor.” He was right. We may be furious with our government for being so slow and stupid about getting ahead of this pandemic, but that should make us even more dedicated to one another. Silver lining, y’all. There is always a silver lining. And since I’m writing from the veritable buckle of the Bible belt, I’ll leave you this morning with a bit of scripture: “If you fulfill the royal law according to Scripture, you shall love your neighbor as yourself, you do well.” (James 2:8)

                                                  In the Spirit,

                                                  Jane