In rural North Carolina, you find strong people who are driven by purpose and committed to working together: neighbor helping neighbor. You will find local farms like I used to work on, and family-owned businesses, like I used to own.
If you find a neighbor in need, you're responsible for serving that neighbor in need, you're responsible for loving a neighbor just like you'd like to love yourself.
A lot of my work is helping people to find their own life's purpose and then follow it. I find that when people are not working on their life's purpose there is a sense of emptiness and anxiety.
I would never call a neighbor an enemy. But I would request the neighbor to be a good neighbor, to see that the neighbor's interest is a stable prosperous neighbor, a neighbor that is doing well.
When I was a teenager, we used to go to North Carolina with my family, and we'd all pile into, like, a beach house. We'd rent, like, two or three next to each other, because I have a humungous family.
I grew up and raised my family in Nash County in rural Eastern North Carolina. Small towns and rural communities like mine offer special opportunities for so many families. I want them to prosper.
By accepting a suspicion against the neighbor, by saying, 'What does it matter if I put in a word about my suspicion? What does it matter if I find out what my brother is saying or what a guest is doing?' the mind begins to forget about its own sins and to talk idly about his neighbor, speaking evil against him, despising him, and from this he falls into the very thing he condemns. Because we become careless about our own faults and do not lament our own death, we lose the power to correct ourselves and we are always at work on our neighbor.
I like writing a lot more than I used to. I used to find it scary but now I've got used to it once it gets going. I used to find it hard to start. Fear of the blank page. The first thing you write down won't bear any relation to what's in your head and that's always disappointing.
America has a long and rich tradition of generosity that began with simple acts of neighbor helping neighbor.
I had to break up with my last girlfriend for lying about being raped by her neighbor. But I've met her neighbor, he's a cool guy. Not like her other creepy ass neighbor though.
We are not taught "love thy neighbor unless their skin is a different color from yours " or "love thy neighbor unless they don't make money as you do" or "love thy neighbor unless they don't share your belies." We are taught "love thy neighbor". No exceptions. We are all in this together - every single one of us. And the only way we are going to survive as a society is through compassion. A Great Community does not mean we all think the same things or do the same things. It simply means we are willing to work together and are willing to love despite our differences.
It is easier to love humanity as a whole than to love one's neighbor. ... Some of the worst tyrannies of our day genuinely are "vowed" to the service of mankind, yet can function only by pitting neighbor against neighbor. The all-seeing eye of a totalitarian regime is usually the watchful eye of the next-door neighbor. In a Communist state love of neighbor may be classed as counter-revolutionary.
Our American tradition of neighbor helping neighbor has always been one of our greatest strengths and most noble traditions.
If we can make it easier to put smaller, local, minority-owned, and women-owned businesses to work, our communities and our state will benefit.
War, and more wars, are helping Government to siphon the earnings of its people into its treasury for its own selfish purpose, which is to rule the people for the Government instead of for the purpose of serving the people. When will the people see that the very taxes they pay are building a power to be used against them?
I was born in Norfolk, Virginia. I began school there, the first year of public school. When I was 7, the family shifted back to North Carolina. I grew up in North Carolina; had my schooling through the college level in North Carolina.
The great thing about civility is that it does not require you to agree with or approve of anything. You don't even have to love your neighbor to be civil. You just have to treat your neighbor the same way you would like your neighbor to treat your grandmother, or your child.