Love thy neighbour, not thyself…

It was 3 am when the phone rang. Tring Tring Tring Tring it went on. It wouldn’t stop; until I got up. I lifted the Mosquito net and jumped out of bed and rushed into the room where the phone was, leaving the mosquito net swaying in the breeze of the fan. The mosquitos rushed into the reserved compartment. 

I lifted the phone and I heard crying on the other side of the line. Literally sobbing. My irritation at being woken up so late, sorry so early in the morning vanished. Hello, Hello I said. My instrument was the old type and there was no number display so I had no idea who it was that was sobbing at the other end.

I thought it was a wrong number. Then a woman’s voice said “Is that Bradley? Bradley is my son and he was not at home then and had not been at home for some time. The thought came to my mind that my son sounded just like me on the phone and my head started working overtime!  I could have said yes and learnt more, but I am naturally honest – even at that time of the morning when the robbers are most active - so I said no – Its Brian.

She said, “Can you come here? My husband has had a heart attack” and she started sobbing again”.  Straight away I said I’m coming right away and put the phone down.  It was then I realised I didn’t know who it was that had called! And I didn’t know where to go!

I was confused. After the advent of mobile age, I am not very small talk friendly with the neighbours to know her voice intimately. But I could not ask who it was. Not at the time. For one it would have been inappropriate, second I completely forgot!

I racked my brains and came up with a strong possibility. By that time my wife had gotten up and I dumped my theory on her.  She supported my theory, which was surprising given past experience but she also berated me for not asking the most important question! That was not surprising.

I grabbed the car keys and I drove the car down the road to the neighbour’s house three houses away. It happened to be a neighbour I was not particularly fond off as there were occasions when it was reported to us that this particular neighbour had been bad mouthing us.  But this was not the time for pricked egos.

My wife had already reached by foot. Her husband was barely conscious and we shifted him in the car to the nearest hospital – Fr. Muller. Today he is hale and hearty to use the correct word and the neighbours are extremely grateful. But that’s not the point.

The Bible in Mark 12:31 gives us Christian’s two commandments – the first Love your God with all your heart and the second is this: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’ I’ve learnt this commandant in my catechism class in school and I’ve never forgotten it. I’ve always believed in it and in fact my neighbour demonstrated its efficacy in her adolescent years though later on she changed her neighbourhood!  There’s also the story of my friends neighbour – While he owned a black male Labrador, his neighbour owned a female golden retriever. You can imagine the neigbourly bust up when the Golden retriever produced six black puppies despite a high wall and being chained.

G K Chesterton the British writer turned this universal commandment on its head when he said “The Bible tells us to love our neighbours, and also to love our enemies; probably because generally they are the same people,”

Come on let’s admit it. We have a variety of neighbours from the grumpy old man who never smiles, or the conceited neighbour who is the self-appointed bully of the road or lane, or the neighbour who constantly finds fault with going on’s across his wall and complains incessantly, miserly woman next door who will ask without restraint but give with reluctance, or the couple next door who speak ill of everyone else in the neighbourhood. And yet they are all kind and helpful when required. Among these negatives there are positives too, some who go out of the way to help to share to know and to understand also help you spend your time, precious or otherwise!

GKC put it very well when he said - “Your next-door neighbour is not a man; he is an environment. He is the barking of a dog; he is the noise of a piano; he is a dispute about a party wall; he is drains that are worse than yours, or roses that are better than yours.” Reminds you of Pakistan and China?

So despite their dark sides, and the love hate relationship we share with them, we must improve our association with them – greet them well, share our produce, our news, our views, the market rates and the daily small happenings in our lives and perhaps not put a password for the wifi!

For whom else do we have to depend on in these lonely times? The children are out or small, parents are aged or it is just us a couple lost in our own worlds. What makes neighbours the people we cannot ignore is the fact that the neighbours are our only immediate recourse in an emergency situation especially in cases with households with small children, aged parents or just the parents in the nest as was the case with the couple in trouble. How true are the words, “Far better a neighbour that is near than a brother far off.” 

God gave us two commandments I give you a third – Love your neighbour, not thyself!