Becoming Neighbors

I received daily wittings from the Henry Nouwen Society. Today I want to share with you a great thought about who is our neighbor?. You know when I read this, the only thing I can do is bend my knees and cry out to God saying: “Lord break me, break me! so I can feel the broken one, so I can touch the needy, so I can live your love, grace, forgiveness; but Lord start with me, help me love my own brokenness, my neediness, and experience your love, grace and forgiveness. There is so much I need to give you and give to others.”
In today’s reading while getting together to pray, we read Psalm 46, “God is a safe place to hide, ready to help when we need him. We stand fearless at the cliff-edge of doom” I found myself in the edge of this cliff trying to make sense of all the things I am learning; then when I feel a little more content because we had a good group on Sunday morning, God speaks to me again with these words:

We become neighbors when we are willing to cross the road for one another. There is so much separation and segregation: between black people and white people, between gay people and straight people, between young people and old people, between sick people and healthy people, between prisoners and free people, between Jews and Gentiles, Muslims and Christians, Protestants and Catholics, Greek Catholics and Latin Catholics.
There is a lot of road crossing to do. We are all very busy in our own circles. We have our own people to go to and our own affairs to take care of. But if we could cross the street once in a while and pay attention to what is happening on the other side, we might become neighbors. (Daily Meditation)

I realized that we usually become “born again Christians” but we forget our neighbors. Suddenly our neighbor is only the one we feel comfortable to ministry, to serve or for quite down our guiltiness. We want the neighbor to join us in our safe places, but am I willing to cross the road and become a neighbor to the one who doesn’t want to get close to my safe place? If He is my hiding place, why am I so afraid to leave my comfort zone, my safe place and get dirty? I can no longer wait!!!I need to become a neighbor.