My Grandson John, asked me to cogitate on ‘What it means to “Love Your Neighbor”

To me, out of the “bias” of my Christian life, it is a part of a large teaching of Jesus of Nazareth. “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

I think we human beings are high grade animals with mind and conscience. Because of this we can reason, choose, adapt, imagine, and change our behavior toward ourselves and one another.

Man is born with a sense of wonder. For 40 million years ‘mankind’ -- the most unique creature on a unique planet -- has been pilgrimaging and seeking not only survival, but fulfillment. The Unbegun Beginning, Creative Force who in the evolutionary process breathed into Man/Woman a ‘living soul.’ My mind/heart has reasons for this that Reason doesn’t recognize. Only now in this 21Century is this fact abundantly clear.

Affirming this is the remarkable new Exhibit in Balboa Park’s Museum of Man, The exhibit traces our evolution on this Planet from the age of the Dinasaur’s to the present moment of instantaneous communication around the world. The Exhibit ends with the statement: “All people on this planet are 99.99+ % the same!”

Now to the challenge. How to love one another?

Tolstoi, creative philosopher, said “Where Love is, God is.” Christ’s Apostle Paul in l3th Ist Corinthian letter gave the best interpretation and showed us how. Jesus, my model in human behavior helped me understand love. By reading his words and putting the word “Jesus” every place the word “Love” appears made me realize there is a power to love one’s neighbor.

Feel God in yourself. See God in your neighbor.

We are made of the dust from the stars and incarnated with the power to love. As Toyohika Kagawa said to me at The Univirsity of Redlands: “Love is the Law of Life.”

On the wall of my room, are the words of Henry Drummond:

‘I shall pass through this world but once. Any good therefore that I can do or any kindness that I can show to any human being. Let me do it now. Let me not defer or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.”

Caleb Elroy Shikles 7/1/02