Guest column: Being neighborly includes everyone

I'll be honest, I'm too young to have had Mister Rogers on my television growing up. Some of you may be in the same boat as me. Just because he is long gone from our screens, though, doesn't mean we have to forget the wisdom he passed along.

In an age defined by division and discord, we would do well to heed one of his many lessons: that neighbors are not just the people you live next door to.

I don't have to tell you that political division in our country has deepened in the last decade. I'm certainly not here to explain that fact, and none of us can snap our fingers and fix it. I'm also not writing against conflict or against caring about politics. As Fred Rogers himself taught, conflict is a natural part of community.

The particular danger of our day is that political division becomes so deeply ingrained that we lose sight of the fact that our political opponents - those who think, or vote, differently than we do - are our neighbors, too.

To put it another way: We don't have to agree with someone, or vote with them, to remember that we all bleed the same way, and that we are all members of the same community.

None of us will ever fully attain Jesus' vision for loving our enemies, at least on this side of eternity. But if we manage to treat each other as neighbors, especially when we disagree, our communities can overcome our country's sharpest political divisions.

It's always a good day to be a neighbor. Maybe, just maybe, that's what makes the days beautiful in the first place.

Seth Wynands is the pastor of Bethesda Lutheran Church and Rivers Edge Presbyterian Church in Carlton. He lives there with his wife Andrea, their foreign exchange student Alex, and their unneighborly cat Winston.