Faith | Who’s my neighbor? Become love in action to understand

“Wheelbarrow”, said the teacher, using a common object to demonstrate how to really see and write about what’s around you.

Blank looks from the kids.

“Wheelbarrow?”

More blank looks.

The teacher tried again, drawing a picture.

“This is a wheelbarrow”.

No recognition from the class of 7-9 year-olds.

The teacher realized her mistake. These are inner city kids. No yard work, no gardens. They’ve never seen a wheelbarrow in their lives.

But they could BE wheelbarrows!

She took them into the school hallway, teamed them up in two’s, and taught them to race as wheelbarrows, one child running on hands, the other holding the legs. They had a great time being wheelbarrows. They had a lot to write about after she brought them back into the classroom.

I read this true story in a book about how poetry can inspire both teachers and students. A tiny poem about a red wheelbarrow reminded a teacher that experience is often the best teacher.

In my own faith tradition, drawing on the teachings in both the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures, I often see instructions to DO ministry of caring for others, BE light to the world.

Learn from experience.

Discussion, consensus, planning all can have great value, but can also become ends in themselves. It’s an old joke that a book of the New Testament is the Acts of the Apostles, not the Meetings of the Apostles.

One traditional teaching in many faiths is “Love your neighbor.” I’ve endured enough well-intentioned meetings to imagine the endless discussion of what it means to love someone you don’t know or like or approve of. And I can hear the voices raised in debate over who the neighbor is: someone nearby, someone of my “tribe,” what about people living in ways we can’t understand, who are acting more as enemies than friends?

These are “wheelbarrow” moments, when words have no meaning or too many meanings, when a group can’t move forward with any Acts of the Faithful because there’s no agreement on what we’re talking about.

Blank looks on some faces, glares on others.

The great teachers of the faith traditions I’m familiar with knew what to do to avoid endless discussion and wrangling. DO this act of kindness, BE a healer, GO where there is need, TEAM UP for safety and support, ACT faithfully.

When we do caring acts of kindness, we are acting out the call to love, letting food or blankets or safety take the place of any definition of “love.” When we offer help to anyone who needs it, we are treating them as neighbors.

Doing transforms us into being. We become what we do. We become love in action; we erase artificial boundaries and become neighbors with those we aid.

As the news shows thousands of people in every kind of need, we also see thousands of people showing up to help. The definition of love is made clear in acts of courage and kindness. The identity of the neighbor is obvious as hands reach out across every imaginable difference of ethnicity, gender, lifestyle, politics and faith.

I have a card taped to my front door, a daily reminder from the 13th century Sufi poet Rumi: “Be a lamp or a lifeboat or a ladder. Help someone’s soul heal. Walk out of your house like a shepherd.” BE and DO.

The Rev. Jan Griffin is a retired priest in the Episcopal Church, serving as a board and committee volunteer in her diocese and affordable housing facilities. Questions and comments should be directed to editor Lucy Luginbill in care of the Tri-City Herald newsroom, 4253 W. 24th Avenue, Kennewick, WA 99336. Or email lluginbill@tricityherald.com.