I Am His Keeper

By Michael D. McIntosh

I am my brother’s keeper. It’s a common attitude amongst our culture to

believe that people’s problems are not our own. As if we are all in separate world bubbles; which isolate
all our failures and successes. But the truth is we’re not. We live in a world more similar to a lake than a
bubble; where each drop of life creates ripples that always collides into the one that’s beside it. No
matter how far we move or barricade ourselves from the other drops we will always feel their ripples. It
is the inevitable. In the beginning of this semester I was only grappling with this concept of love. It was
indeed as strange as eastern cultures are to our western world. This remained this way of course; until I
began reading a book by a Roman Catholic monk entitled No Man is An Island by Thomas Merton. The
book is a masterpiece, exploring the intricate relationships that each man and woman has with one
another, regardless of how close they may be in proximity or in intimacy. To put it simply, the book
changed me; causing me to undergo another painful rebirth and renewal. Like Jacob I wrestled through
those pages for endless hours, and came out of it all with only a disfigured spirit that could never return
to what it was before. I have an irrevocably new perspective toward my neighbor. A perspective that
causes me to consider their burdens to be my own.

Most of us have been taught that loving your neighbor is a passive attitude. If we're not gossiping about
them, or stealing from them, or murdering them in our minds then we are therefore loving them. But
this was never the biblical understanding of love. "To love your neighbor" is an active pursuit of your
neighbor's well being. In other words, you don't sit around waiting on someone to ask you for help;
rather you go searching for someone who needs your help. If Jesus had our understanding of "passive
love" then he would have continue to sit in heaven and watch us all perish. But he didn't, instead he got
himself up and went on an active pursuit in searching for those who needed saving. This is the life we
are all called to live. So let this be an encouragement to you all (myself included), do not sit in your
comfortable lifestyles any longer; but rather get up and pursue your neighbor's well being. If they have a
need and you have the means to that need then get up and aid them. This could be emotionally,
spiritually, financially, or simply your friendship. Get up, and pursue them as Christ has and still is
pursuing you! For all the other commands of the bible are summed up by this: "To love your neighbor as
yourself."