When I was growing up, my father use to say, “No matter who they are or what they do, treat your neighbors with love.”

I didn’t fully understand what he meant until one Sunday on our way to church, when we spotted someone shoveling corn from our crib into a battered old truck. Dad stopped the car and got out. The man looked up and froze.

I knew this man. Everybody in town suspected him of stealing their gas! No one had ever confronted him for fear of his violent temper. Now we’d caught him red-handed. What was Dad going to do?

“If that’s not enough,” my father said evenly, “come back tomorrow. Take as much as you need. Remember, you’re my neighbor.”

The man dropped his shovel and hung his head.

He never stole from us or anyone else in town again, as far as I know. Perhaps he learned how to be a good neighbor that day. I know I did.

Louis Lehman, Albany, Oregon. Quoted from: home.att.net/~scorh3/GoodNeighbor.html