In a world increasingly defined by individualism and self-promotion, the idea of being your brother’s keeper can feel quaint.
We remember the lesson from Sunday school.
“Am I my brother’s keeper?” comes from the story of Cain and Abel in the Book of Genesis.
After Cain murdered Abel, God asked Cain where Abel was.
“I do not know. Am I my brother’s keeper?” Cain replied
The parable has taken two prominent forms down through the centuries.
As a question, it implies a denial of responsibility for someone else’s well-being or actions.
As a statement, “I am my brother’s keeper,” expresses a sense of duty to care for and protect others.
When asked by God, Cain’s defiant question is the first use of the phrase.
His refusal to accept responsibility for his brother’s well-being gives us the modern idiom.
The phrase has been used as a theme for community outreach, Bible study and countless other initiatives that promote social responsibility and mutual care.
Are those all things of the past? Is the lesson of Cain and Abel lost to the information overload that floods us daily?
Is it old-school to look out for one another? Antiquated even?
The world seems to have turned us inward.
As we look outward more to social media, we turn inward more to focus on self-image.
It’s as if taking care of one another has become a moral relic from another era.
“I’m looking out for number one. I don’t have time to worry about the other guy.”
That’s a dangerous road to hoe and I think we can do better.
Far from being outdated, this quiet virtue may be the very thread holding our fragile human fabric together.
To be your brother’s keeper is not about losing sight of number one.
It’s about responsibility—not just for ourselves, but for the well-being of those around us.
It’s the friend who stays on the phone a little longer because they sense something’s wrong.
The neighbor who checks in when your lights haven’t been on for days. The stranger who intervenes when someone is being mistreated.
The citizen who sidelines their own self-interest for the betterment of the community as a whole.
At its core, it’s a radical act of empathy. I am just saddened to think something as humanly natural as empathy has become radical.
We often think strength lies in independence, but true strength lies in interdependence.
We are better together and we are best when we have the humility to admit we need each other.
Being your brother’s keeper doesn’t mean carrying another’s burdens forever.
It means showing up, standing guard and saying, “We are in this together.”
In times of division, perhaps the greatest act of courage is love.
Not just for those we know, but for anyone who crosses our path.
Because when we look out for one another, we all thrive. We progress— not regress, and isn’t that the world we’d all rather live in?
Austin Lewter is the owner and publisher of the Whitesboro News-Record. He is also an instructor of journalism and broadcast at Tarleton State University where he also serves as the director of the Texas Center for Community Journalism. He can be reached at [email protected].