To love thy neighbor is a worldwide quandary, I have taken note, generationally witnessed or seen to not always be in effect.
Why is this seemingly easy suggestion, request, or command yet seemingly so difficultly followed?
I grow to still reflect.
Perhaps there are those who would be quick to differ, suggesting to be surrounded by immense love, supported by those around them.
There should be no harsh remarks to one who has felt or understands love in such a manner.
Love is bliss– it truly should be.
What of the time where you come to realize love has expectations to abide by?
What if you all of a sudden question the very love you thought to have been given does not encompass your growing understanding of love?
Is love measured in numbers of how many surround you to suggest you truly are… loved?
Has not a time been felt where amongst a crowd, not one idea of love could be felt?
When one loves, does this suggest acceptance? Tolerance?
When does a neighbor truly feel love?
Have you, as a neighbor, felt love reciprocated?
Unconditionally?
Was this part of the task?
If so, are we, have we been completely truthful?
Does not all it takes, sometimes, is to be told a belief of our neighbors and the simplicity of just following along leads us to cling onto the truth without question?
And, yet, which of all written, read, and then, spoken to, be passed on, is the actual truth?
If various perspectives in the truth, then, which is truly true?
When the heart, the mind, the body, and the spirit questions, is their suspicion to be held against the truth?
All of a sudden, you, too, have become convinced that your neighbor doesn’t seem so deserving of anything close to your love.
Yes?
A generalization is implicated, whether told you or felt due to one mind-boggling seen, heard, smelled, tasted, or felt experience.
The self takes on a memory that now is deemed as a shortcut for understanding thy neighbors.
The implication has been planted.
The truth has been now, told.
And, yet, what if in the end, it was you who was wrong all along?
What if, in the end, you come to discover you were but the pon partaking in a distraction of actual plans to divulge in a revelation of what has been waiting to be released?
I cannot say that I never heard of those around me speak little of others because I have, even guilty in partaking as I grew older to have power in say otherwise.
While told I always find the good in others, tolerable of many actions, this does not exempt or exonerate me from what perhaps could have suggested for me to further act.
Is there any wrong in pondering on the why of one’s intentions?
No matter how benevolent or innocuous, should we be okay to allow ourselves to ask first the reason for intent?
Had there been a time where an attack is being made and while we may suggest betterment for perspectives, we still allowed minds around us to flow in their own direction, seemingly going with the flow?
My own actions have certainly not put me in a position where even I would vote myself as the greatest advocate for the good.
How is this possible when at times who you are next to is the one you vowed love to?
Which neighbor is to love?
Can it be possible to love all?
I have so long preserved my time and energy to protect my own walls of attacks that I embrace standing ground within my own fort.
At what point do we love our neighbor?
To a point where we fight to the end with them?
Fight?
Is this love?
Does not the Good Samaritan care for the wounded when found helpless?
Love.
Fight.
Same?
Is anger and vengeance the same as peace and love?
Have peace and love been arrived to once anger and vengeance have reached fullest and complete fulfillment?
When witnessing anger and vengeance, has not peace and love been set aside even though the intent of both the latter were the driven force?
When one sympathizes or empathizes, by giving aide in whatever able form, do we truly love?
To understand a neighbor?
To care for a neighbor?
To stand by a neighbor?
To die for a neighbor?
Without any plot to gain recognition or acknowledgement for one’s actions?
Shall one not first adhere to their own accountable feelings of truth?
For inside, is that not the underlying truth of our intentions to love?
Does anyone carnally around fully and comprehensively know the intent of your actions to love?
The one that goes to sleep with you and lays with you in your thoughts, wakes with you, and continues on to sit aside, in the back of your thoughts as to your intentions- your heart, your mind, your body, your spirit.
How can one love thy neighbor and yet express opposition for another?
I must ask.
How does one choose which neighbor to love?
The good one?
How do we really know?
When beaten, is this the victim that lies on the ground or do we dare ask first if this very moment transpired from ramifications of ill and wicked acts facing the consequence?
Better to free ten guilty than to imprison one innocent, was a phrase told to us in my Law and Society class back in high school.
As I realize and embrace to have always silently questioned many things just accepted, I sat in silence pondering upon such statement.
Truthfully, I believe I am still sitting in silence, thinking of this statement.
Perhaps I questioned, but wasn’t quite sure how to think of this at such a young age back then, If we free ten guilty, what would that do for the innocent around?
I think, ten Barabbas next to me, my family, and the community.
Is this truly better for all than to imprison one innocent?
To love thy neighbor.
How many good have dared to be imprisoned to spare ten guilty to be freed?
Is not that an act of Love thy neighbor?
Into my golden years, I am coming more to realization that I am yet a child trying to understand this world.
As a teacher and as a mother, I have heard and witnessed so much conversed around me, allowing me to accept that the more clarity I arrive of words and actions, the more befuddling the motivations can be.
To know one’s intentions is the challenge.
One gives.
Why?
Love?
Altruistically?
Or, if we could read the why in all actions, would we find instead, shame, guilt or, desire for personal gain at times?
Are we not told to give in secret, to a point where one hand is unknowing what the other does?
Whether time, treasure, or talent, if not given freely without expectation or reciprocal investments, would actions still be to love thy neighbor?
And, if so, which one?
