The other day I was waiting for the elevator in a hospital when a woman walked up and stood next to me. She had no coat on, so I assumed she was either a hospital employee or volunteer. But what struck me about the woman was her t-shirt. It was black and had white lettering that stated, “I am my brother’s keeper.”
The statement refers to a scene in Genesis when God questions Cain after Cain has murdered his brother Abel in a fit of anger and jealousy. When God asks where Abel is, Cain famously replies, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” That question has echoed throughout the ages as human beings grapple with their own self-centeredness vs. their responsibility for others.
I’ve been thinking about this statement since last Wednesday’s school shooting, which was perpetrated by a 19-year-old former student. TV news reports showed him appearing in court for his arraignment, a skinny, bowed, pathetic figure, no doubt hated by the vast majority of Americans for the horrific act he had apparently committed a mere day before. And I wondered, who was looking out for him in his lonely life?
Don’t get me wrong. I believe the man who opened fire on high school students and staff in Parkland, Florida, killing at least 17, needs to answer for his crime. He and he alone is responsible for his actions.
But I couldn’t help feeling a sense of pity for his miserable existence, which included having been adopted as a child, who knows under what circumstances. He and his biological brother had lost their adoptive father 13 years ago and their mother mere months ago. Throughout the shooter’s young life, he had demonstrated troubling behavior, such as torturing animals, and had eventually been expelled from school.
Was there any attempt to diagnose a possible mental illness? Did anyone from the school or community reach out to try to help him and his brother, now virtually alone in the world? True, they had been taken in by a family in the community. But that family had allowed a disturbed young man access to a semiautomatic weapon.
Our American culture has many virtues: democratic values, social mobility, belief in hard work, and a vigorous defense of individual rights. There is a sense of “I am my own person” in our society that allows people great freedom but can also leave them unmoored from social networks and a sense of belonging. The phrase “It takes a village to raise a child” is not an American one. But maybe it should be.
I don’t know all the facts of this young man’s life. I don’t know whether or how people may have tried to get through to him, to help him. But he seems a lonely figure, and there are so many like him in our society.
The Biblical figure of Cain was cast out from his people. He had failed to recognize his duty to his own brother: to protect him and not to harm him. We are our brother’s keepers. But in our very individualistic culture, I’m not so sure we are doing a good enough job shouldering that responsibility.
Because I Said So 