“You shall love your crooked neighbor with your crooked heart.“- W.H. Auden
My favorite lessons are from Matthew’s gospel. Blessed are the meek, blessed are the peacemakers, and let your shine in the darkness, pray in private, don’t act all holy and good, and the big one: love your neighbor as yourself. “Neighbor” meaning everyone, basically. Even the jerks. And that is the tricky, and yet most crucial part of being a Christian, isn’t it? Which is why I love this verse about my crooked heart, from my fellow Episcopalian, poet W.H. Auden.
He also wrote this verse, about why love is so important, no matter what your faith is:
I and the public know
What all schoolchildren learn,
Those to whom evil is done,
Do evil in return.
