September
NEIGHBORS
“The good neighbor looks beyond the external accidents and discerns those inner qualities that make all men human and, therefore, brothers.”
– Martin Luther King, Jr.
As a drunk I said cruel things about other people. My prejudices hid my fears and insecurities. I condemned in others what I saw in myself. I deflected attention from me by the name-calling others: sick manipulations. “Neighbor” was only a word that I could spell and interpret, useful for religious homilies or pretentious innuendoes but not something I really experienced.
Today I am able to be the “good neighbor” to many people, known and unknown. My recovery has brought people into my life. Relationships mean something; friends are important; the world is one. Black, Asian, Hispanic — all add a variety to my life that enable me to get in touch with buried feelings of my “difference”. In the stranger I discover something of myself; the foreigner has become both friend and neighbor.
God, I never cease to be amazed at the mystery and variety that is “me”.
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