Noah and the ark. It’s a story many of us are pretty familiar with.

I’d always loved reading about Noah’s close relationship to God—and his obedience to God’s direction. But a recent experience left me wondering about Noah’s relationship to the guy next door. “Did Noah’s neighbors know him?” I asked myself. How might the story have turned out if those neighbors had recognized him as the intelligent, faithful man I’d grown up reading about?

What if someone reputable had stood beside Noah and said, “We should pay attention to these warnings about a flood and trust that Noah is building the ark for a purpose. I know this man’s character. He is not a person who acts irrationally. ” I hope, given the opportunity, I will be the kind of person who recognizes my neighbor’s best intentions, instead of writing them off as foolish.

One Wednesday morning, I had an experience which brought home the new lesson I learned from this familiar Bible story. My two sons and I had just finished reading the Christian Science Bible Lesson when Benjamin, the older one, discovered a different collar on our family dog. Because we didn’t recognize the collar, and didn’t know who put it on him, I immediately deduced that someone near our home had tried to keep him and possibly even harm him. A few “suspects” came to mind. So I warned my children to be alert to any suspicious or odd activity from neighbors. And I sent my sons to school that day armed with questions for neighborhood kids. In the afternoon, after dramatically retelling the story to my best friend, it became clear that she had been “the culprit.” Oops. Talk about jumping to conclusions.

When she’d watched our dog the weekend before, I’d forgotten to give her his chain and leash for walking, so she used one she had on hand. Instantly, all blame dropped from my thoughts. Of course, my friend had been innocent. But beyond that, this experience resulted in a blinding flash of the obvious in my thinking. I was able to see my initial reaction and false assumptions as a mistake. And it caused me to ask myself some tough questions. Among them, Why had I automatically assumed that any of my neighbors would deliberately inflict harm anyway?

When I’d sprung into action, telling my kids to spread the word about our dog throughout the neighborhood, I’d just finished reading from the Bible, in order to recognize and celebrate God’s laws of love as foundational for my home. But I’d turned around and failed to apply those laws when given the opportunity, instead of remaining calm and approaching things from a prayerful perspective. Ouch!

I’m grateful I was alerted quickly and gently to the inconsistency between what I could have done, and my harsh reaction. It became clear to me that the conclusions I’d jumped to were inconsistent with the kind way I normally thought about my neighbors—when things were uneventful. Here was an opportunity to replace my judgment with good thoughts, and recognize that even in times of “crisis,” my response could be calm. In a recent Christian Science talk I’d just attended, the speaker defined “repent” as, “to turn thought”.

It was helpful to have this opportunity to repent; to re-think my reaction before I had time to do any more harm by spreading fear. The most effective action I could take as a neighbor was to turn back to the original spiritual facts about God’s children—that we all possessed an inherently spiritual nature. And that we’ve actually inherited divine qualities such as mercy and compassion. Those were the kinds of values I wanted to instill in my children and foster in my community.

Later that evening, I clued my sons in on the rest of the “dog collar story” and admitted to my mistake. We talked about how to love our neighbors, even those we don’t know. We talked about having one Father, God, and how His impartial love belongs to all of His children. And we wondered together about Noah’s story, and imagined what we might have thought had we seen him building a huge boat! Then, we agreed that the conversation we were having together was a prayer that would bless our neighborhood by healing distrust.

More than just solving the mystery of the mismatched collar, this modest incident has initiated a whole new awareness for me about people’s intentions, and society in general. I’ve learned that prayer is much more effective than panic. Nothing less than love is a legitimate starting point when thinking about my neighbor.

Loving your neighbor:

Science and Health
88:18-20
205:22

King James Bible
Matt. 22:37-39