If you are unattached, ask their permission first. If you are
attached, ask your significant other(s) first, then ask them.
Seriously though, to love your neighbor is easily summed up in the word
"consideration". By which I mean, "thoughtful concern for or sensitivity
toward the feelings of others", (Encarta Dictionary definition #4. respect)
- Although driving through your neighbors yard might be a shortcut
to your own driveway, that would not respect their private property
rights. If you asked first, there is an off-chance they might
give their permission.
- Second hand smoke is seen by many as a medical problem for non-smokers.
If you want to smoke, get the permission of those around you first
before lighting up. This might be in the form of simply sitting
in the smoking section of a restaurant. It might be by smoking
outside instead of in your own home if your spouse is a non-smoker.
- Feel the need to get a chemical high? Go ahead, but don't
operate a backhoe while doing so, you might hurt someone's property
or worse, kill another person.
- Think your teenager is going to do something stupid? Tell
them why you think so, then let them go make their mistakes.
Don't judge them when they fall flat on their butt; educate them.
- Know of a friend that is married three times? Don't judge
them. Maybe their three spouses know of the arrangement already.
Stay out of their business. It's not up to you to be a tattle-tale
for crimes of the heart.
- It might be that you know someone broke a law. Don't think
it's God wish that you tell the police. Telling the police
may be the humanly legal right thing to do, not the Godly right
thing to do.
Where are all these examples going? To the point that consideration
is the most important thing you can have for your neighbor. Love
them the way God loves you; unconditionally. What you do in the
presence of others is dependent on the others. What you do in
your own privacy is entirely up to you. The way to treat others
is the way God treats you. We all fall short of perfection.
Keep that in mind the next time you see or hear someone making a blunder.
Your neighbors include everyone. If they have a human mother and a pulse,
they are your neighbor. The woman that lives next door is your
neighbor. The president of Italy is your neighbor. The man
that cut you off while driving to work last week is your neighbor. I
am your neighbor. And so on and so forth. Everyone who inhabits
the Earth is your neighbor. Respect them all with all their varying
ideas of morality. Respect their foibles, and their quirks.
Respect their rights and their dreams. Respect their "bad" habits
and their "rude" behavior. Why? To paraphrase my father,
"Because Jesus told you to, that's why".