my neighbour, myself

recently, during a conversation, I felt deeply betrayed and dismissed ... I tried to address how I was feeling but again was dismissed and so I left it ... feeling “what’s the use” ... “this is the way it always has been and always will be” .... and so I parked my feelings, my pain, my hurt and shut the door on them ....I tossed myself into the ditch at the edge of the road.....
the very next day I was reading “Loving God, Loving Myself” and suddenly started pondering the scriptural story we refer to as “the good Samaritan” ..... the story that asks the quesion “who is my neighbour?”
there was a man, in a ditch, by the roadside, obviously beaten up, hurting ....
he was visible to all who passed by ... one who saw and did not stop was a priest ... he had places to go, things to do, people to help and did not have time to stop and stoop down and perhaps get a tad dirty ... another who saw and kept going was a Levite .... a church official, who decided not to take a chance in soiling his official robes, nor disrupting his important schedule ....
there was one who stopped ... a man from Samaria, one who was looked down upon by priests and Levites as being of lesser importance .... this one saw, and stopped and brought the beaten one to a place of safety and quiet where he could heal ... he provided the means of healing ...
and I saw myself in this story ... in all the characters of this story ...
yesterday I was beaten up, hurt and tossed aside at the edge of the road ....
I was also the priest .... too busy with life and others to care for to pay attention to the wounded one ....
I too was the Levite .... dressed respectfully, living well, serving .....
I needed to find the “good Samaritan” within myself ... the one who does not mind a mess, the one who interrupts the agenda, the one who is fully present and so stops to hear and listen and bring to a place of healing ...
and so, who is my neighbour ... ? the broken, beaten up one? or the one who will stop ?
and I think it is not only me, but perhaps all of us live with a “neighbour” walking alongside us ... part of ourselves .....wounded parts and helper parts ..
we simply need to be willing to stop when we see .....we need to love ourselves ... I need to love myself enough to care for myself when beaten up, I need to take the time to heal myself out of the ditch ....