Sometimes we think of loving our neighbors in abstract terms. But we should strive to love others personally, especially when they’re different from us.
In her 2018 BYU devotional, “Loving Our Neighbors,” Professor D. Carolina Núñez speaks about the importance of loving the people around us. She explains, though, that Church members may have a limited understanding of the commonly cited scripture “love thy neighbor” (Matthew 22:39) in our modern age. She says, “I fear that when we hear the word neighbor, we imagine people who live near us, likely in houses or apartments that look a lot like our own and whom we chat with at the neighborhood park or in the stairway that connects our apartments.”
Photo by Auzza38
Professor Núñez pushes back against this idea with a simple translation of the English phrase “love of neighbor” into her native Spanish language: Amor al prójimo. This means “love of one who is in proximity”—not just an abstract affinity for our literal next-door neighbors, but the intentional development of a deep love for our community members.
Professor Núñez uses examples from her own life to show the effects of this personalized love. As a lawyer, she traveled to southern Texas, where she met 2,000 women who were trying to flee their countries for safety from gang violence. Though she initially felt unable to make a difference because of their lack of common ground, she explains the shift she felt while speaking to a devastated woman whose husband had been killed: “In that moment I loved that woman—my sister—personally. Her proximity to me helped me better understand her humanity and mine.” When we practice an intentional love for those we don’t know, we can develop Christlike empathy for people outside of our walks of life. We can learn to love them as God loves them.
“Our neighbors are those who are different from us,” Professor Núñez says. “They are the people whom our own social circles have rejected. They are our brothers and sisters who…come from different backgrounds.” As we practice Professor Núñez’s encouragement to intentionally love those who are different from us, we can begin to understand how God feels about all his children. Exercising charitable empathy will aid us as we build a worldwide community full of charity, understanding, and love for those we do not know.
Read more about loving our neighbors in Professor D. Carolina Núñez’s BYU devotional, “Loving Our Neighbors.”
Source: BYU Speeches
—Laura Vance, Latter-day Saint Insights
FEATURE IMAGE BY THE DIGITAL ARTIST
Find more insights
Read more about loving all members in Y. B.’s Latter-day Saint Insights article “Space for Agency: Loving Our LGBTQ Brothers and Sisters.”
Read about Christ’s perfect empathy in Karly Lay’s Latter-day Saint Insights article “‘Jesus Wept.’”