Skip to footer

My people

In response to the question “Who is my neighbor?” Jesus responded with the well-known parable of the good Samaritan. Here’s a poem based on the essential message of true brotherhood conveyed in that parable.

  • By Becca Beaty

Christian Science Perspective audio edition
Loading the player...

Who are my people?
What classifies them as such?
Must the pigmentation of their skin
match my own?
Or must they be culturally
similar to me?
Perhaps we must share a nation and a language.
Or, in ultimate necessity, we must
emerge from the same bloodline
in rootlike fashion?
And are those failing
to fit the proper classifications
not my people?

The Samaritan
who helped the desperate man
on the lonely road
obviously disregarded the above-mentioned criteria.
The laws of transient physical relationships
were not laws for him.
The light of spiritual love
broke through the clouds of mortal misconceptions
and brotherhood was shown
where priest and Levite saw none.*

And someday,
on the basis of universality
rather than consanguinity
all shall say
Brother.

*See Jesus’ parable of the good Samaritan, Luke 10:30-37

Originally published in the Oct. 23, 1978, issue of the Christian Science Sentinel.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Enjoying this content?
Explore the power of gratitude with the Thanksgiving Bible Lesson – free online through December 31, 2024. Available in English, French, German, Spanish, and (new this year) Portuguese.
Read the Thanksgiving Lesson
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to My people
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/A-Christian-Science-Perspective/2020/0709/My-people
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe