Now, ‘to treat others as we would like to be treated’ is, as we all know, not at all easy. But ‘to treat others as we would like to be treated’ when others have ’not treated us as we would like to be treated’ is excruciatingly difficult to do. Yet ‘treating others as we would like to be treated’ is at the very heart of compassionate community work!
Some modern psychologists like Sigmund Freud would say ‘to treat others as we would like them to treat us’ when others have ’not treated us as we would like to be treated’ is impossible.[1] But other modern psychiatrists, like Viktor Frankl, would say it is not only possible, but it is most imperative where it would seem most impossible!
’We who lived in the concentration camps can remember those who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from us but the last of human freedoms – the freedom to choose our spirit in any circumstance.’[2]
While Sigmund Freud tell us to ‘love thy neighbour as thy neighbour loves thee’, rather than ‘love thy neighbour as thyself’, Mahatma Gandhi insists that taking ‘an eye for an eye’ will only end up creating a short-sighted society in which the blind lead the blind.
The Buddha, Siddartha Gautama, gently reminds us, ‘Hatred never ceases by hatred, but by love alone is healed. This is the ancient and eternal law of the universe’.[3]
And Martin Luther King, the great 20^th century civil rights campaigner, warns us ‘never to succumb to the temptation of becoming bitter. As you press for justice, be sure to move with dignity and discipline, using only the instrument of love.’[4]
So the art at the heart of community work is learning to overcome hatred with love.
Consider your answer to the following questions:
1. What do you think about the idea of ‘overcoming hatred with love’?

2. How do you feel about using only ‘the instrument of love’ yourself?