So much is happening to our world today. Iraq, Katrina, are just the two biggest in front of us right now.
Some of us (if we're really paying attention) are going to learn from these experiences. Here are words from the latest lesson of my partner and dear best friend, Joel Carothers.

To Editor
Ruidoso News


It is amazing to me that I have been on the planet for nearly 65 years and only last Wednesday did I really learn what “Love Thy Neighbor” has come to mean in these United States.

A friend in Dallas invited an older neighbor/acquaintance for coffee last week. The conversation centered on the Katrina aftermath in New Orleans. The neighbor confided that she “deeply believes” that the disaster was right and good. My friend was taken aback and asked for clarification.

The neighbor lady said, “I am a good Christian woman and as far as I am concerned the devil lives in New Orleans. It is sin city and we don’t need it anyway.”

Like my friend, that thinking appalled me. As a few more days have passed I have become deeply saddened by the sentiment in the neighbor’s statement. I’ve heard similar sentiment expressed on talk radio, by people who hide behind their own morality to pass judgment on others.

Love Thy Neighbor has been edited. It has come to mean, “Judge Thy Neighbor”. The neighbor lady is clearly fearful of anyone who doesn’t think, live, or practice her way of living, and by inference, her religious beliefs as well.

Judging thy neighbor has become the most ravenous, deadly social disease there is. It eats at the very fiber of our existence. It is more life threatening than the bite of the most venomous creatures on land or in the sea; more deadly than flesh-eating bacteria; a killer of more souls than AIDS; more destructive than any terrorist attack, real or imagined; more serious than any drug problem or alcoholism in any family.

Judging thy neighbor gives permission to hate, without reservation. It is a horrible horrible thing and it is being taught on TV, on radio, in the papers and magazines, in the schools and in the churches. And the fear of being judged has made us a nation of weak, fearful people.

I have been no different. I judge my neighbors but I am going to change that. I am committed to becoming more tolerant, more patient, more understanding, more loving and less fearful. If I do not judge, by example I will not be judged.