Loving our neighbor

My friend Robin described me as a cat chasing his tail. Some people are called to be monks and live in monasteries, he said, but you’re not one of them. You go around in circles with pietistic, philosophical, heady notions about spirituality, but I never hear you talking about loving your neighbor, he said.

This is a writing about the Gospel message to love our neighbor. Robin says our job is to do that. If we reject the message, then we reject the One who gave us the message.

I’ll be honest with you; it’s not a very exciting prospect. In fact, it’s boring. I would much rather spend time pondering the great verities of the cosmos than sit and listen to some dolt drone on about his problems. Neighbor loving can be very uninspiring.

One thing about neighbor loving that always has perplexed me is that I don’t really seem to get a chance. None of my neighbors are starving. They all have clothes to wear and a place to stay. I can and do give money for the poor, but that’s hardly a concrete, hands-on experience of actually loving. Giving money is important, but it also can be a way to detach one’s self from any real commitment to loving others. I suppose it’s a matter of attitude.

One thing I could do to love my neighbors, I suppose, would be to avoid gossiping about them. That would be very hard for me to do. There’s a compelling thrill about passing on some good dirt. It’s certainly no fun to sit on a juicy tidbit. Besides, I can always absolve myself by saying, “This may or may not be true, but…” That’s a lie and a cop-out, of course. Love dictates that I keep my trap shut.

As I think about it, another way to love my well-fed, well-clothed, well-sheltered neighbors is to tolerate their idiosyncrasies with patience and cheerfulness. That would be hard. Some people have a lot of gall in things they say and do. If I couldn’t scorn and resent their incredible stupidity or their brazen actions – I mean are we talking about blessing them when they curse me? Doing good things for them when they run wholesale over me? Standing by patiently while they keep rambling on?

Other ways to love neighbors, in a practical sense, come to mind. There are hundreds of letters I haven’t written, for example. Community agencies beg for volunteers. People in care centers and rest homes love companionship, even from people they don’t know at first. Blood donors love their neighbor.

When was the last time I found a kind word for the checkout person at the grocery store? How often have I thanked my letter carrier, and sympathized with her sometimes-grueling job? I could remember that courtesy is not dead.

Probably one of the keys to loving one’s neighbors is being open to loving them. It’s probably a safe bet that the Lord will give us plenty of chances to do it, even among the great middle class. I can chase around after my tail in my spiritual life, thinking the great thoughts and having the great visions – ultimately, though, finding myself pretty much where I started. Or, I can begin to go out of myself a little bit, begin to ignore the gooey feelings and go for the hard realities of love. The Lord said He didn’t want to hear “Lord, Lord.” What He wanted, He said, was someone who would do the will of the Father in heaven. God’s will is done in monasteries, but most of us live in the neighborhood. –T.R.

written by Thomas A. Russell
first published in the Lafayette Sunday Visitor on May 24th, 1987