Mister Rogers used so sing these words on his kid’s TV show:
Would you be mine?
Could you be mine?
Won't you be my neighbor?
Won't you please,
Won't you please?
Please won't you be my neighbor?
- Lyrics by Fred M. Rogers, 1967.
If you’re neighbor drops by to borrow your hedge trimmer, you lend it. If their car needs a boost, you boost. If there’s an emergency and you have to watch their kids, you babysit. If their kid is sick and you have medicine they need, you rush it over. If their house burns down, you help them re-build. You’re neighbors. That’s what neighbors do.
Some of us aren’t so good at the neighbor thing but we probably wouldn’t let our next-door neighbors starve to death. We wouldn’t let their kids die because they couldn’t afford a little bit of medicine. We wouldn’t sit back and do nothing if there were landmines in their backyard. We’d do something.
I don’t know when someone stops being our “neighbor.” In a small town it’s probably a bigger area than in a city but at some point all of us draw a line. Some people are neighbors and most aren’t.
The famous story about The Good Samaritan was told in response to the question: “Who is my neighbor?” The audience of the story was first century Jewish people who clearly did not consider Samaritans to be neighbors. The story was a way of asking the Jewish people to think of Samaritans as neighbors.
When we think of someone as a neighbor, we treat them differently. I wonder what would change if we thought of the world’s poorest people as neighbors. I wonder if some of them might relate to Mister Rogers’ question.
Please won’t you be my neighbor?
Note - In honor of Mister Rogers the American spelling of “neighbour” was chosen on this page. And in the previous sentence the American spelling of “honour” was chosen in honor of Mister Rogers.
Neighbors
Poverty Busters
Just Shopping
Partners