Article May 2, 1988 Issue

Neighborhood healing and the Golden Rule

A new home in a neighborhood of "problem" children adds new meaning to the old question "Who is my neighbor?"

Mary Hardin DeSena

Is it really possible to love other people's children as we do our own? Is it even possible to approach this ideal realistically? And if we try, how do we draw the line between troublesome meddling and the genuine love that heals?

A healing of animosity and difficult relations with some children in our neighborhood taught me that God's law of love never compromises with evil but gets at the root of the difficulty and heals it. As I worked to solve this problem, however, one very basic rule of healing stood out to me: universal love doesn't operate within the narrow limits of personal opinion. Rather, human opinion must inevitably yield to God, divine Mind.

Opinions about the "problem" children in the neighborhood abounded. We were new to the area, but it wasn't long before we got the message "Watch out for those kids!" The warning came as a gesture of concern, rather than gossip, as neighbors felt our own young children should be protected. But from the first we were not really comfortable with the varied opinions. We certainly did not want to perpetuate the problem, but frankly, we brushed off the remarks with the vague hope that our neighbors were exaggerating.

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