Thursday March 28th, 2024 4:01PM

Time to take 'Love thy neighbor' to heart

I’ve always loved the movie “Driving Miss Daisy” and its depiction of a friendship between two of the most unlikely people, a wealthy, intelligent Jewish woman and a poor, uneducated black man.

When the movie was released, I recall some people saying the movie was racist, mostly because of the way Morgan Freeman portrayed Hoke. But those people sorely missed the point of the movie.

It was the story of how people for different backgrounds – ethnic, religious, educational, societal – became best friends over a 25-year period.

When Miss Daily learned Hoke was illiterate, she didn’t complain about failing school systems or blame Hoke for being lazy. She took it upon herself to teach him to read.

When an ice storm hit Atlanta, Hoke didn’t assume his wealthy friend had plenty of people to look after her. So he braved the elements and went to check on her.

Of course, “Driving Miss Daisy” was fiction, set in the 1940s and 50s. I’m not certain that a lot of us in the 21st century care too much for people who different from us, much less embrace the idea that we can actually be friends.

As regular readers of this space are well aware, I’m been on something a crusade for a number of years, trying to get people to start being nice to each other again, to understand that simply disagreeing with someone isn’t a good enough reason to hate.

We see hate manifesting itself in so many ways in society today. A white man shoots up a black church because of hate. The Supreme Court makes a ruling a lot of folks disagree with and the venom boils over at anyone who dares have a different opinion on the issue.

I’m certainly no Biblical scholar, as I’m sure my preacher will attest. But in Mark, Jesus is asked, “Which commandment is the greatest.” And Jesus replies, “Love the Lord with all your heart and all your soul. … And the second is this: Love your neighbor as you love yourself.”

That seems pretty straight forward to me, and I didn’t need years of divinity study to understand the meaning. On the other hand, it’s important to note that Jesus didn’t suggest we agree with everything that someone does. Just that we love them.

It’s always been funny to me. We disagree with our parents. We disagree with our spouses. We disagree with our children. We disagree with your friends. Just we continue to love them unconditionally. But when the issue is political, the hate just spews.

We are embarking on a new presidential campaign, one that may very well shape the future of our country. We need statesmen and women, not the same tired politicians more concerned with their political party’s success than the country’s success. I think a lot of Americans agree with me.

But look who’s leading the presidential race. Do we really want a president who makes fun of the way his opponents look? Do we really want a president who turns into a petulant middle schooler when someone disagrees with him?

I think our country deserves better. I think our country needs better. We need to start caring about each other more and stop bashing those we won’t agree with.

We’ve come a long way from “I may disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”

I’m not sure that’s a good thing.

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