Should I be asked to love someone I fear?

I’D be grateful if you would allow me to share this with Guyana. I never wanted to get caught up in the act of writing letters to the press, but the current atmosphere has forced me to ask questions of myself, questions for which I can find no easy answer.

My Christian Faith calls me to love my GOD first, with all of my being, and then to love my neighbour. I fully embrace this, for if I did not, I could not claim to have been created in GOD’s Image and Likeness!

My confusion comes when I recognise that though I love my neighbour, I must at election time and generally at all times live in fear of that neighbour; that neighbour who sees me not as a person with dignity, entitled to my own views and opinions, but as a “coolie” only good to be kicked around and taken advantage of. How can I love someone and live with a dread that comes another hour, another day, another time, they may turn upon me like Judas turned against CHRIST, and seek to destroy me because of the texture of my hair, or my political views.

The truth is, I really fear some of my neighbours!

It is not easy to live the standards of JESUS when we need to be constantly on edge when we encounter those neighbours, to always be on the alert around them, never relaxed.

The horrors of the decades from the 1960s to this moment, are things we are not allowed to forget and move forward. The scary thing is that my neighbours joyfully justify their actions, damaging and disgusting actions, simply because we are different from them.

My prayer continues to be that GOD will allow me to continue to embrace His desire for me to love unconditionally, hard though it may be, as He loved from the Cross; to declare every day, after every incident of hate, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” What else can we do? Certainly not retaliate in like manner, because an eye for an eye will only leave the entire Guyana blind.
DAVID A. MORTLEY

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