What did Jesus mean when he said "love your neighbor as you love yourself"?
This is from Nouwen's "Daily Meditations" that I receive in a daily email...
Bridging the Gap Between People
To become neighbours is to bridge the gap between people. As long as there is distance between us and we cannot look in each other's eyes, all sorts of false ideas and images arise. We give them names, make jokes about them, cover them with our prejudices, and avoid direct contact. We think of them as enemies. We forget that they love as we love, care for their children as we care for ours, become sick and die as we do. We forget that they are our brothers and sisters and treat them as objects that can be destroyed at will.
Only when we have the courage to cross the street and look in one another's eyes can we see there that we are children of the same God and members of the same human family.
Most of the people we see as weirdos are actually so similar to us it's scary.
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