The love that builds and rebuilds neighborhoods

The thing about good neighborhoods—and there are some—is that they give people a feeling of belonging. People like being known individually. They like to be cared about, supported, valued. They like to feel that, in a certain sense, they are part of a larger family than their own home unit.

When this feeling of neighbor and neighborhood is missing, whether it's in an area of several blocks or society as a whole, the sense of community needs to be rebuilt. In fact, most of the problems of society simply can't be solved without a rediscovery of what it means to be neighbors.

This apparently new insight is really a very old one. Even though Christ Jesus showed the individual nature of salvation, he also taught that people couldn't separate their own good from the good of others. Second only to love of God, he taught love of each other. His rule was "love thy neighbour as thyself."

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