In this edition of Sentinel Watch with host Tony Lobl, our guest, Ann Kneeland, explores the story of the good Samaritan and what it means to “love your neighbor as yourself.” She shares her experiences of being a good Samaritan and being a person in need, and explains what she learned from each situation that helped her overcome pain, sickness, and lack through yielding to God’s love.
What is a Good Samaritan?
Most of us think of it as someone who helps another person, without asking for anything in return. At different points in our lives we might be the one who is the Good Samaritan helping others and other times, we are the ones in need of a Good Samaritan.
The Good Samaritan concept is one that’s very alive right now. You are seeing it within our communities, during challenging times, with people helping each other overcome new and difficult challenges.
Ann talks fondly about a passage from an autobiography by Mary Baker Eddy called Retrospection and Introspection. At the very end of the autobiography, there is a beautiful poem by A.E. Hamilton that sums up what it is to be a Good Samaritan:
Ask God to give thee skill
In comfort’s art:
That thou may’st consecrated be
And set apart
Unto a life of sympathy.
For heavy is the weight of ill
In every heart;
And comforters are needed much
Of Christlike touch.
— A. E. Hamilton
This poem shows the Christlike touch, bringing comfort and lifting our human actions to something that flows from Divine love. It’s something above just a human helping a human, it’s actually us listening to Divine love and having that higher form of love that’s directed by God.
It’s an expression of God’s love to humanity.
Ann shares her personal experiences and anecdotes throughout the broadcast, but ultimately comes to this very powerful conclusion about what it really means, in God’s eyes, to be a Good Samaritan:
The Bible speaks of God as good and God’s law as the supreme and only law governing all. Because this is so, there can be no so-called laws of matter, disease or death to oppose God’s law, which is life itself. I kept reasoning with this sort of spiritual thinking and I continued understanding things from God’s view until I was at peace. I accepted God’s creation in view as the only reality: it’s eternal and irreversible.
– Ann Kneeland
For more about how we can manifest love and receive love from our neighbor, tune in to this special edition of Sentinel Watch—a weekly production of the Christian Science Sentinel: Click here to listen to the full Lessons Learned From The Good Samaritan podcast