LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR... WHY IS IT SO HARD?

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Love your neighbor…
why is it so hard ?

An introduction to spirituality



By Albina Sabater











This book was written for all those who, like me, ask themselves:

Why are there some people smarter than others?
Why are there some people born beautiful and others ugly?
Why do some people live surrounded by wealth and others in misery?
If God is love, beauty and kindness...
How can we explain all these things?
I hope you can find some answers here.

Albina Sabater

a.sabater @ vtr.net







1. A special assignment



This book corresponds to a deal ... and to a very special assignment.

During a crisis in my life, when I felt very complicated, my faith went reeling. I never lost it completely, but I couldn’t understand what was happening, and why. And when, alone in a church, I bitterly complained about my situation, I got a loving response, even if I suspect it contained a heavenly smile:

“You complain about what you are living, but you forget that Christ, who only came to give love, received ...well, you know the history”.

After that experience (unforgettable) I decided to work for “the bright side”, for God. It was a treat. And I have tried to accomplish it with my limited human possibilities. I have always had help.

Then, some years ago, inside of me began to take shape a kind of inner restlessness: “I have to write something”.

Sure, I'm a journalist and write daily. But I knew I didn’t have to write another story, not a report. I thought about writing something about travels, but it wasn’t that either. About deeper issues? Hundreds of books have been written. Dozens of philosophers, priests and scientists have developed great ideas. How could I, a journalist, do a thing like that?

I got some directions, in general, not in an specific way. “Do start with what you know, but begin now”. So, I started, with a wide variety of notes. I don’t know at what time this began to shape by itself, as a book.

If what I have learnt is worth for someone, that’s good news. I don’t have all the answers. I am a human being, one among several billions who inhabit this beautiful planet. I work, I pay my bills, I go to the supermarket. I get colds, I get tired, and sometimes I also get angry (I’m not perfect yet).

But I trust in God. I feel Him, increasingly, as a Father. A very close Father, present, almost visible, in everything and everyone. And feeling this way, so protected, so loved, gives a very different point of view about the world. Especially because God is “my” Father, but also the Father of each and all of us, even if we are billions.

His love is endless. And if we help Him to spread the love, this planet should be a Paradise. It is a Paradise, no doubt about that, but the planet is already very dirty, in a material and spiritual way. We must clean it with Love. There is no other remedy.

And each one of us can do that, in our own environment. Let’s do it, consciously. Let’s make Love. For ourselves, for God, and with God, who is our Father.


2. Why do we suffer?

There are many good people who frequently feel that their good intentions are meaningless because around them everything seem inconsistent. They wonder why they should suffer, why their mother, or husband or son died, why they lost their jobs, why they don’t have money, why they are sick.



Is God unfair?

No. He is not unfair, nor is unfair a father who slaps a little boy who is getting his fingers in the electricity plug. So, the boy will learn he must not do that anymore, because it’s dangerous, harmful for him.

Sometimes, love must be expressed with some shocks. These are extreme cases. But, if we really see a child half an inch from putting his fingers inside the plug, shall we warn him gently? No!

Of course not! If we are at some distance, we will scream as loud as we can, and if we are close, we will take the child a way as rapidly as we can, with strength, and we will slap his hand.

And don’t we sometimes behave like children?

Could it be that our Father wants us to learn some things for our own good?

There is no inconsistency in anything. We see things and facts in an incoherent way, because we fail to understand them entirety. Let’s imagine a caveman visiting a hydroelectric power plant. Would he understand what are those dams, those engines, those wires? Would he understand the relationship between all those things an a lamp inside a house?



Of course not. By ignorance.

And all of us are ignorant, in many areas. We are not able to see the connections between the macro and the micro, where we are today.

But the connections do exist. In absolutely everything. Between God and each one of us, although we are not aware of that. And between all ourselves, human beings, even if we don’t know or we do not realize that.

If I am writing this, at this very moment, is not by accident. I have an internal imperative that commands me. But I’m working with a computer in which design, manufacturing and transportation where involved thousands of people from different countries. And if I have a cup of coffee, there were also hundreds of human beings who contributed for me to have that cup of coffee: someone planted the seed, someone took care of the land, someone harvested, someone developed the product, someone exported it, someone imported it, someone distributed it… and so on and on… because someone designed and other made the cup I’m using, the spoon… and so on and on.

And each one of these human made that by obeying his/her internal desire or the obligation of doing it. Each one of them also had an internal imperative, whatever it was. But each one of them was a part of a huge chain of interconnections. Never mind if he/she knew this or not. The chain existed, and exists.

Similarly, we are a part of a plan, a much bigger plan, so big that we fail to realize its magnitude. We are in God’s plans.

And since God is Love, we are linked in a chain of Love, to help each other.

But, just as in any part of a human production line a person can do his/her work in a badly way, by pouring poison in a bottle or leaving a package opened instead of closed, the same way we can spoil that chain of Love elaborated by our Father, be that by selfishness, laziness or pride.

The difference is that those damages we do to others, will come back later to ourselves. Not as a punishment, but simply by law. The same law which establishes that an apple tree will give us apples and an orange tree will give us oranges. We reap what we sow: selfishness, vanity, arrogance or indifference.

Nothing of what we do get lost in space. Everything has a sense inside a huge plan we cannot see.

The connections are in any field we can think about, as well as in religions, philosophies, sciences.

All the religions lead to the same point: to love our neighbor and to develop our consciousness. We couldn’t assume that God is so unfair to have established only one single religion in only one area of the planet, leaving the other areas in the darkness and with no possibility of salvation. That would be absolutely absurd.

If someone of us was born in a Muslim country, with Muslim parents, and learnt that kind of religion since he/she was a child… well, that is the way that child will grow, for some reason we don’t know. And the same, of course, is applicable to every religion, or non-religion, in every zone of the world.

But any person, be him Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, Catholic, Protestant, agnostic or atheist, can be friendly or disregarding with the neighbour, tolerant or derogatory, generous or selfish.

This time I was born in the West, and had a Catholic family (at least, my mother was). Therefore, I was baptized, made my first communion, and then my confirmation. I'm officially a Catholic. But I am convinced that God does not care if you're Buddhist, Catholic, Pentecostal or Muslim, or if our skin is black, white, pink or yellow. He doesn’t mind if you are politically at the left, right or center. He doesn’t care if you are a carpenter, a journalist, a doctor or a housewife.

He only cares about his Laws of Love, and the way we practice them.



3. The Divine Spark





Would you say that a six months old baby is equal to a 40 years old man?

Would someone say that a cleaning woman in a little restaurant is equal to one of the queens or princesses we still have in Europe?

Logically, something which is different from other thing, can’t be identical to the other thing.

In this case, yes. It is.

Let's see: in essence, in our deepest essence, yes, we are equal. We all have inside ourselves a little divine spark. We all come from the same source: God. Therefore, we all are equal, although we can belong to different races, cultures, and even we have different or opposite beliefs, at least apparently.

However, that divine spark that exists in every one of us, is expressed in many different ways. It’s a matter to look around us, or to read the morning paper or watch the news on TV. We'll see crimes, violence, wars, hunger, despair, hate, cruelty.

Where is, then, the divine spark?

Well, there it is. But suffocated, drowned. Covered by waste: envy, greed, pride ... Or wrapped in fear.