Zarahemla: The City of Brotherly Love
If you were to ask anyone what the city of brotherly love is, they’d quickly tell you it’s Philadelphia. That being said, it sometimes doesn’t always live up to the hype. We were treated great in Philadelphia and I enjoyed the visit, but that that couldn’t be said of an immigrant family with little kids on the plane out of there. One guy’s racial epithets and excursion over the line of decency tarnished the image in a big way (kudos to Southwest Airlines for bringing the pilot and about 3 other employees out to shame this guy).
If the people of Zarahemla can feel this kind of concern for their former masters and arch-enemies, then Philadelphia is obliged to step aside. It begs the question: What were they doing right? and What are we doing wrong? We profess to be members of the same church as the one established in Zarahemla, yet so often can’t talk civilly with someone with different political views, or ethnic background or religious traditions. So often it’s us and them, and we certainly aren’t prone to see them as our brothers. After all, they are different. Most of us aren’t even close to being able to live by the Savior’s charge to ‘love thy neighbor as thyself’ (Matthew 22:39). Fortunately, there’s a lot of us that are trying to be better. If we could simply get this down, so many of the world’s problems would sort themselves out.