My brother's keeper

I have been asked to take a devotion on the subject of “ Am I my brother’s keeper ?” and am thinking hard on this the earliest question that man posed to God and unquestionably remains a prickly one. One can not lightly answer “yes” or “no” to this most ancient of questions without the echo and resonance of its implications ringing in our years. Even while writing this, I am mindful of the many people who considered this question and answered “yes”. On the shoulders of those who considered me their brother, and chose to be my keeper, I stand today. I stand today, not very tall, but still stand

I remember the first of them, a senior in the medical college I studied. In my earliest years as a Christian, I had lots and lots of questions and the belief that every question of mine had an answer. Often my questioning would run late into the night, till either he or I or both would fall asleep on the rather fragile string cot that the hostel supplied to us as students. It was he who taught me not to judge. Decades ago, the evangelical church was not too forgiving( is it today, ? I don’t know). I had habits like smoking cigarettes which would have earned me instant ostracisation those days and these habits could not obviously be hidden in a hostel situation. But this person( his son incidentally is a colleague at Oasis today), he never judged, never condemned, and at least on one occasion , sensing my frustration and vain attempts at giving up smoking,he fasted and prayed for a while hoping that this would help. Although it did not, and I would give up smoking many years later, the fact that some one would care enough to fast and pray for my good remains a touchingly enduring memory.

There was this other family, who in student lingo was my “local guardian”, the one family we could visit with official sanction when the hostel food was just too unpalatable. The man took Bible Studies in the hostel and the first time I met him was a couple of weeks before he was getting married. Our friendship grew as their marriage grew and they kept on sharing their own life experiences with me. Experiences in marriage, experiences in parenting, experiences in planning one’s future, resources, money--- they kept nothing back. And I following a few steps behind, lapped up all that they had to share, to teach. and leant a lot.

There have been many others , but I remember these two families in particular because as time went by, I discovered the truth that not only were they my keepers, and later my wife's’ keepers too, but in time , their children often became my daughter’s keepers . The question “ Am I my brother’s keeper ? ceased to be a question; it became a statement of experience of truth.

The question often haunts me - so many people have invested in me, so many have answered the question “ Am I my brother’s keeper with a resounding “ yes”, that I often ask myself - have I been any one’s keeper ? and cared for them, as I have been cared for ? it is a difficult question to answer in part because I do not have the same gifts that they have and cannot care or express care in the same way.

The one consistent thing that I have heard about myself in the quarter century that I have been an adult is that I am a good mentor. that I pick out the best gifts that people have with whom I relate, either at work or else where and nurture those gifts , water them and develop them till they are in full bloom. People tell me that working with me is hard, at least initially, but in the long run, I have had their best interests at heart and few have regretted this. Another way, is through my small writings - like this one perhaps. I have been writing these sorts of pieces which have no great intellectual value for close to two decades now and as I travel around the country, I have been met people who say that they have been “blessed” by my writings, whatever that might mean.

And so I hear all this and wonder - am I my brother’s keeper ? I don't appear to be touching any one’s lives in the manner that mine own has been touched and so there is this perpetual dilemma. But whatever be the situation in my life or yours, increasingly the realization is dawning on me that this ancient question is really a riddle. The answer to this is not to be given in terms of “yes or “no”, but much rather in terms of “how” and “what”. How am I keeping my brother safe and secure in an increasingly uncertain world, and in what ways am am I equipping him one day, to be his brother’s keeper some day. That to me is the real question. The one that really demands an answer.

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