Love Thy Neighbor As Thyself

Opening:

Joke
I was told that every 3rd person was amazingly beautiful or extremely handsome. Now look at the person directly to your left, now look at the person directly to your right and if it isn’t either one of them!!!

Body:

I just completed a world religions course and I was very pleased at how most every major religion has a profound sense of the need to care for, love and value our fellow man. Let me share with you some of their golden rules.

- Christianity: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" Jesus, Luke 6:13
- Buddhism: "Hurt not others in ways that you yourself would find hurt" Udana-Varqu, 5:18
- Baha’i: "Blessed are those who prefer others before themselves" Tablets of Baha’u’allah
- Hinduism: "This is the sum of all duty; Treat others as you yourself would be treated"  Mahabharata, 5:1517
- Jainism: "In happiness and suffering, in joy and grief, regard all creatures as you would regard your own self" Lord Mahavir, 24th Tirthankara
- Sikhism: "Be not estranged from another for God dwells in every heart" Sri Guru Granth Sahib
- Zoroastrianism: "Human nature is good only when it does not do unto another whatever is not good for its own self" Dadistan-i-Dinik, 94:5

This brings me to my story which is about a farmer and his neighbor.

Building bridges with your neighbor

A farmer had an argument with his neighbor over a wandering cow. The result was that the neighbor left the argument and kept his friends cow, even though they had been friends for many years, the farmer allowed this situation to terminate this friendship with his neighbor. One day a traveling carpenter came to the farmers house and asked the farmer if he had any work for him. After thinking about it for a bit the farmer said "yes".

He took the carpenter over to a stream and said "see that stream, it used to be a pond that my neighbor and I used to share, but last week we had a argument and my neighbor took his tractor and plowed a ditch so that the water flows between are property separating us. I want you to build a fence along my property high enough that I don't have to see him any more". The farmer left for town to take care of business and the carpenter got to work. At the end of the day the farmer returned home with great expectations, hoping not to have to look at his neighbor any more because of the new fence.

When the farmer drove up his property he was shocked to see the carpenter waiting for him but he could not see a fence. The farmer parked his truck and went over to the carpenter, "what have you been doing all day and where is my fence". The carpenter took the farmer down to the stream and to the farmers astonishment he saw that the carpenter had built a bridge from his property over the stream to his neighbors property. Before he could say anything he saw his saw his neighbor coming over towards them, within a few moments the neighbor had crossed the bridge coming up to the farmer saying "you are to good".

They made up their differences, the cow was returned and they became close friends once again. Later that evening the farmer asked the carpenter to stay on full time, he would give him full time work and pay him well, the carpenter declined saying "I must go there are more bridges to be built"

The moral of this story is that we all need each other! You see God didn’t give you everything you need for life for he gave some of it to me and he didn’t give me everything I need for life he gave some of it to you.

We can not live with each other if we are going to hold grudges and resentments, we have to learn to forgive and overcome our differences. We can not fight each other and expect to survive.

In Closing;
I would like to challenge us to live the golden rule and it doesn’t matter which one you pick. Let us not be so self absorbed always focusing on self gratification and every bodies favorite FM station WIIFM (What’s in it for me). Don’t get sucked in by those commercials and a culture that says "just look out for #1" Live the golden rule, for it is truly more blessed to give than it is to receive!!!!!!!!!!!