Falling in love with Creation means falling in love with
ourselves
each other
our neighbor
And who is our neighbor?
“Won’t you be my neighbor?” sings Mr. Rogers gently, looking straight into the camera, into the eyes of watching children, outsiders all (because they’re not on the set right there with him), yet being welcomed in, being named “neighbor.”
What does it mean to be a neighbor, asks the parable of the Good Samaritan. Outsiders, healers, the merciful.
The sacred and the secular expand the notion of neighbor to encompass more than those who simply look like us, live near us, love like us, speak like us, or are even the same species as us.
This reading is a scattering of thoughts about how falling in love with creation means expanding our notion of neighbor.
The poem in its entirety is in a PDF document.