The question, who is my neighbour? Is more relevant today more than ever. The parable of the Good Samaritan comes to mind.
Who is my neighbour? I don’t mean my neighbours who play their loud music any time of the day or practising the trumpet during my Saturday lie in. They are obvious neighbours by nature of their proximity. I mean, my community people I work with do I show them kindness when I can? Or am I selfish and self engrossed? Do I listen or help others?
It’s not always easy to be good when everyone around you wants to celebrate darkness. They don’t want to show kindness, neither in word or deed. You have to make the choice to join in or stand up for truth and fairness.
Is my neighbour the person who hates you for no reason? The person who places barriers in your way. The person who talks behind your back and poisons the well. Yes, it’s hard to love that neighbour. This parable asks the reader to exercise many virtues forgiveness, empathy, love when your hatred and mistrust are justified.
In the parable everyone who was supposed to show love and patience walked on the other side of the road which reminds me of the harrowing story of a sherpa who collapsed on a climb to Mount Everest instead of stopping the climb to help the man the climbers were filmed climbing over him in their selfish ambition to reach their goal. Yes, it is still relevant today.
Another recent story, Lucy Letby the nurse acting like a good Samaritan to grieving parents, a better example would be a wolf in sheep’s clothing – attacking the weakest and most vulnerable babies and then indispensable to parents following their harrowing deaths. Perhaps the doctors who attempted to bring her reign of terror to an end are a good example. They were tenacious in their attempts to protect the babies and their parents.
My final example is the 10 year old left dead and alone in a house in Woking whilst her father, his girlfriend, brother and five brothers and sisters boarded a plane to Islamabad – alerting the authorities from Pakistan. How are people capable of such cruelty?
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