I just remembered the across remembered the across-the-street neighbors who started letting me and my sister cut across their yard walking to and from the bus stop when i was six bc the regular way took us past the yard of two very large and barky dogs who startled me so bad once that i fell and scraped my knee

Trying to help a friend

May no one live in fear upon this earthly sphere.

I talk in my book about how the Amish have taken ‘love thy neighbor as thyself,’ Jesus’s second law, as an economic imperative. If you love your neighbors you mustn’t replace them with machinery. There’s another limit. And the Amish don’t limit neighborliness to themselves. In David Kline’s recent book he talks a lot about a person, a neighbor, who is not Amish. The neighbor is old, and he’s having health problems. He drives his car over to David’s, and David goes to town with him to help him shop, take care of the mail, and do all the things that have to be done in town. Then the neighbor has to go to the hospital, and then he’s in therapy. He’s gone quite a long time and while he’s gone they keep his place going. They fill the bird feeders, they take care of the lawn and the garden and the orchard. They clean his house. They throw away his old scatter rugs and get him some scraps at the rug factory, have them bound and put them down. When he comes home, the mail is sorted. The point is not just that this is good for the neighbor, it’s also good for David and his family. They’ve enjoyed it. They’ve enjoyed imagining his pleasure in what they’ve done. And this isn’t selfishness. Maybe it’s more elation. Jesus implies this in a way—a limitlessness of neighborliness. And yet there’s a limit to effective neighborliness. You might be able to deal with one person hurt and lying beside the road, but you alone can’t deal with everybody who has fallen among thieves.