Love Your Neighbor

Lev 19:7-18         9/6/2017

Eat and be well – but you share with him no food. James asks, “What good is it?”

What’s the meaning of this – “love your neighbor”? The do’s and the don’ts put some flesh on it. And in truth, it’s harder to plead ignorance when things are clearly written down.

It’s all maturity. In my infancy the prescriptions were necessary. We all come out of the womb entirely focused on ourselves. My needs. My desires.

But the possibility that makes us authentically human is this other: Love.  Her needs.  Her desires.

To care for the other. To take the responsibility to care for the other. To lift them up. To bind up wounds. To visit in prison.

Empathy is a freedom; a skill developed. We don’t come out this way.

In my mind. In my thoughts. In my intuition – I experience it.

And once I have, I know what to do.

And this is the beginning of the greatest freedom.