our brother’s keeper

I realise that people are afraid to offend people.  I, however, don’t feel like there’s anything wrong in pushing buttons—hygenically speaking.  I’m not saying we should be rude to everyone or say everything that’s on our mind without using tact, but it gets to a point where we shouldn’t be afraid of sharing our thoughts, even if it might make someone else uncomfortable if it truly comes from the heart.

Why?  Why should we be so bold to express thoughts if they bring hurt?

Well, I know what it means to have a broken heart.  I’ve had my heart punctured, and I’m not talking about just girls.  I’ve had friends attack me sometimes for no reason.  I’ve also had friends say that I’m not going down the right path.  Both instances, I’ve often been hurt.  But when we go beyond the hurt and think with a clear mind if what they’re saying bears truth, then we can grow.  Then we can be better persons.  Or we can totally dismiss the other person’s ideas (especially if they are irrelevant).

But still… why?  What right is it to impose our beliefs on them?

I’ve heard the phrase “It’s none of your business” a lot growing up.  I’ve been exposed to a level of a closed-door policy that I just can’t agree that we were meant to live that way.  Granted, I believe that there are (quite a few) moments where privacy is needed.  But when you have households that live next to each other and they never communicate, something is amiss.

Two years ago, my neighborhood experienced at least eighty burglarlies in a three-week span, my house being one of them.  I look at my neighborhood and it’s no wonder.  I don’t really know who lives next door.  I don’t know many people in this neighborhood.  After my house was broken into, I don’t remember anyone coming to our aid from the neighborhood to comfort us.  I’m not mad at them… I’m saddened by the state of our neighborhood.  We call our area a “community,” yet we don’t even know our neighbor.  Or if we do, we hardly talk about the things on our heart.

Now the one who we connect does not soley have to be the person who lives adjacent to us.  The ones we share our heart can be the friend next door, down the street, or across the seas.  Our neighbor isn’t limited to location.  After all, when the scholar approached Jesus asking who our neighbor is, he told him what we now call the parable of The Good Samaritan.  The neighbor to the man who was in distress was not his next-door friend nor even a fellow citizen of his country.  His neighbor was a man from the region that was culturally considered hostile—the one who showed mercy.

In my literature class last semester, we read Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky.  The central character in the story, Raskolnikov, has a dream of his childhood, where an injustice is happening.  An owner is whipping his old mare to death because it wont pull a heavy cart of people.  The owner starts with a whip, then turns to an axe, using the blunt side until dies.  I dont carry PETA posters, but what the owner was doing was not just wrong but ridiculously futile and stupid.  What does the owner gain in killing it?  Yet it killed the mare.  Meanwhile, Raskolnikov as a child had to witness the incident.  During the beating, the child tried to intervene, but the owner kept on shouting “it’s my business!”  Here, we are brought with the question: can we do anything we wish to what we own?  To what claim to possess?  Or are we held accountable?  Granted, the man had all legal right to abuse and kill his mare in a frivolous and horrid manner, yet we are still left with a bad taste in our mouth.

If he was our neighbor, how would we react?  Would we let his business be his business and and let our lives be our only concern?  Or would we intervene… show him what it means to be merciful?  If he was our friend, would we just shrug our shoulders or would we express concern? 
We are all interconnected that even if we choose the apathetic path, his life will directly or indirectly affect our lives.  But that’s not why we should intervene.  It’s because he is our friend.

We are our brothers keeper.  If we call the ones we care about our “loves ones,” then we should be concerned about their actions.  We are our sisters keeper.  If we call the ones we care about our “loved ones,” we should be held accountable for their actions if we saw them head down a destructive path and did nothing.
Yet we are afraid.  We are so afraid.  I am the first to admit.
It’s ironic that we are willing to protest against a war, yet we are not willing to intervene when a friend is at war with him or herself.  Drug abuse… alcoholism… discontentment.  If we have thoughts about our friends, should we not be able to express them?  Should not those words mean so much more than our words against some strawman?
Yet we are so afraid… we’re concerned about offending our friend.  We’re concerned about damaging our friendship.  We’re concerned what our friend might do with something that has pushed their buttons.

But we are our brother’s keeper.  If we did nothing to stop an incident that we were aware of, we should be held accountable.

If they are our true friends, then we shouldn’t be afraid of severing it due to an argument from the heart.  Helping them and yourself discover truth is more important.

To be really good friends [...] means to be able to speak your mind and know that you can offend someone and that you’re going to be friends the next day.

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