Blog 817 – 11.07.2017

“Am I My Brother’s Keeper?”

It is a very old question written by an early brother who had killed his brother and was trying to cover up his crime. We hear it today from corporations selling the environment and their souls for profits and the drug companies, doctors, and politicians who are complicit in the deaths of many of our brothers and sisters in the opioid epidemic – Are we our brother’s keeper? That question was ask in the first few pages of the Bible but has been answered throughout history – and the answer is a resounding, Yes!

Whatever exactly do we owe them, those brothers addicted or fallen on hard times, or those brothers who have themselves become addicted to the deceit of their riches and power allowing their addiction to make them hard? We are instructed to owe no one anything but to love one another. It is not a debt but a privilege to exercise our love muscle, our heart. And yeah, I know you hear and often that the heart is just a blood pump, but the life is in the blood and even more life sustaining than blood is the love that flows from heart to heart.

Believing ourselves poor bereft of love and affection we are all ripe for addiction. The pain of perceiving life without love is too great. Without exception all physical, mental, and emotional pain is linked to a perceived lack of love. I said “perceived” because I have come to believe that none of us is ever even for a moment “unloved” no matter how it may seem. We are conceived, born, and always have been and always will be loved. We are love. Oh, David, you simple minded idiot. Wait a minute, you cannot call a me a simple minded idiot and an elitist intellectual at the same time. You must make up your mind. We all must and I choose to take the high road. As the song says it is the quickest way to Scotland. Having had the wonderful privilege of spending seven weeks there I can tell you it is as fine a place to be as any. Put your bucket down where you are and enjoy the berries, briars, thistles whatever. I ain’t got time to be picking – too busy thinking about my baby brothers. I ain’t got time for nothing else. If you English teachers have a problem with ain’t – I much prefer arhsn’t. A pirate I might be but first and foremost I am my brothers keeper.

Your friend and fellow traveler,

David White