OUT-OF-STATE VISITOR SHARES THOUGHTS ABOUT HATTIESBURG

February 27, 2019

Visitor's Response to my "Love Your Neighbor" post, in The Pine Belt News

Dear Editor: As a traveler, I stayed at a local hotel recently while on my way through town to New Mexico. While there, I picked up a copy of The PineBelt NEWS. My travelling companion wondered aloud why I would bother picking up a copy of a newspaper published in a town in which I don’t live. “This is how I get to know the towns I have such little time to stay in,” I replied.

To make a long story short, here I am finally getting ready to read the issue from Thursday, Feb. 7. When I’m not travelling across this country of ours, I work as a nurse in St. Petersburg, Florida, and I take care of a lot of homeless men and women as well as patients with mental illnesses. I’d like to publicly tip my hat to your columnist, Kim Townsend, on her article “Love Your Neighbor.” Townsend pulled no punches with her thoughts about encountering someone who wa “different” and in the process, she roped me back into my feelings. All too often we tend to put a wall between us and those that make us uncomfortable.

Her words “God, help me to love people I don’t know or understand. God, help me to love people I don’t want to love. God, help me to love people because I don’t know how,” nearly brought me to tears. Thank you, Kim, for reminding me that “We are all God’s children.” And thank you to the citizens of your area who I came in contact with during my short stay. Each and every one of you made me feel welcome.

Rena Leviner

St. Petersburg, Fla.