My grandparents lived on a small dairy farm in New York State. They had four children including my father, another son, and two daughters. For a while Grandpa took a job delivering mail to supplement his income. Grandpa learned that a man on his route had talked to a neighbor about the man’s plan to leave his family and not return. The man even told the neighbor what day he was leaving. Grandpa held the mail of the man who would be leaving, until his last stop the day before that man was to go. Instead of putting the mail in the box, Grandpa rang the doorbell and, being a neighbor, himself, was invited in. It was after dinner, and Grandpa sat in the kitchen across the table from the man.

Grandpa didn’t come home until the next morning, The man he visited never left. Today no one knows what they talked about, or how Grandpa managed to stay there so long, but the incident became a legend in our family.

“Mind your own business” is an expression I heard and even used when growing up. “Mind your own business”: seemed like the height of wisdom to me, and sometimes it still does, but it wasn’t Grandpa’s wisdom on the day and night he spent talking with a man who planned to leave his family: For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works which God prepared in advance for us to do.” (Ephesians2:10)

The Bible has many passages about the care of “neighbors,” as well as the great parable of the Good Samaritan, where Jesus defines “Neighbor.” Our world has far fewer small farming communities such as Grandpa’s, but it is still full of “neighbors” around us, some of whom can be found in our own families. Paul wrote to the Galatians, “Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.” (Galatians 6:2) This is humble advice, and even “small” advice, which, in a a complex, very fast moving and changing world is easily obscured, and often totally ignored. Jesus, however, placed love for our neighbors next to the love for God Himself: The most important command is this: ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”

(Mark 12:29-31)

Grandpa didn’t think twice about sitting up all night with his neighbor, in spite of all his own chores waiting at home. His well worn King James Bible was by his bed, when it wasn’t by his chair.

Love in Him,

Prue