John
        One Saturday afternoon, I locked myself out of my house. So I pried open a window and got in that way. The next-door neighbor saw me and called the police.
        Several minutes later, two police cars pulled up at my house --I had to prove to them I lived in the house. That’s the sad part of this story.
        I don't blame the neighbor who called the police. If you saw a total stranger climbing in the window of the house next door, what would you do?
        The saddest and most disturbing part of this is I'd lived in that house a long time. Yet my neighbor did not recognize me. He'd probably seen me many times. I go out jogging most mornings. And I come and go several times a day, most days.
        How well do we know our neighbors, the folks who live next door? I'm just as guilty of this sin of omission as the neighbor who called the cops. It was a real wake-up call for me.
        Do we care about the communities we live in? Do we care enough to get to know the strangers who live next door? We're all on this planet together and we live in a global community, especially in this age of the Internet. If we don't care about our neighbors, how much do we really care about ourselves?

        You have a saying, "Love makes the world go round."
        It's true -- love does make the world go round. But in more profound and powerful ways than many know.
        Love must always start within your own hearts. That is where it has its roots and its power. And it must be directed at you. You must love yourselves unconditionally before you can truly love others. Loving others without first loving yourselves is a hollow shell of little value.
        That is the first and most basic step in learning to love others. As with charity, love begins at home.
        If you find yourselves feeling disconnected or estranged from your fellow humans, it's because you are not connected to yourselves. You are not aligned with your higher self, with the divine flame within your heart. That flame is now little more than a barely warm, dying ember of what was once a brightly burning flame.
        It's time to rekindle that dying ember. It's time to fan it into the bright golden flame it was once. It's time to see the divinity within your own heart, within your own consciousness.
        When you are able to fully recognize and remember the divinity within yourselves, you will never again feel estranged from your fellow beings, human or non-human.
        Then you will know there are no strangers.