Lately we’ve been thinking about how to be our brother’s keeper in the best sense of that phrase. Living closely together makes any superficial ideas about our responsibility toward each other seem ridiculous. We know the answers are much deeper and more costly than you might typically hear. We were intrigued by Carolyn Arend’s song, “No Trespassing,” and felt there was a message in there for us.
The following are some “raw notes” of the concepts we teased out about how to be my brother’s keeper. I call them “raw notes” because they are straight from the fire hydrant – not much editing and not intended to be thoroughly polished. We basically saw our calling summed up in three “S”es: Support, Supply, and Signal.
Support
Each person’s journey is hard and uniquely difficult.
- We listen.
- We’re friends that cheer each other on (believing in each other).
- We have empathy for each other (compassionate understanding).
Supply
- We make our resources available to each other (spiritual, material, financial, intellectual, vocational, and time).
- Prayer for each other.
Signal
- We provide guideposts for one another as to what is right and good.
- We should look to each other to see how to navigate life’s decisions. Life is complex and things don’t reduce to simplistic questions. There’s no rule book we can go to. If others have reservations about a particular activity or action we do, we shouldn’t judge that and blow it off, but consider that God may be supplying us through that.
- We should be willing to express concerns and we should be willing to receive them. We express concerns unapologetically, but not from a position of omniscience. Some exhortations are more judgment or opinion. Others are specific, concrete warnings that are clear from the scriptures.
- We receive expressed concerns gratefully, with full trust and understanding that the person isn’t saying they’re better than us or that they know everything. Basically, take it the same way you would want your expressed concern taken.