Am I My Sister’s (or My Brother’s) Keeper?
In my previous blog I provided some scenarios where my flesh-and-blood sister and her family are in some difficult temporal situations. Seeing my sister’s situation, my conscience forces me to ask myself some difficult soul-searching questions.
Am I my sisters’ keeper? What is my responsibility in each of those scenarios I mentioned? How much more damning would those scenarios be to me if I was fully aware of my sister’s plight and chose to do nothing to help her? Am I justified in sitting idly by and doing nothing as long as she doesn’t ask? What if she does ask? What is the proper level of personal sacrifice required of me to help her and her family, if any?
I believe that it is during these soul-searching, personal self-interviews that I discover who I really am and what I really believe. The challenge is to be certain I am not using rationalization to create justification for inaction. I find these interviews are best carried out if I visualize the Savior is there with me moderating my personal debate. I run my thought process by Him. Then I try and explain my position to Him in the best way I can while He asks me questions in return. If, in the honesty of my heart, I feel like I can answer his questions in a way pleasing to Him and justify my actions in a way pleasing to Him, then I know I am on the right track. So how might that interview process go in regards to the previously mentioned scenarios? Would He want me to help my sister and her family? Of course He would. Perhaps the better question, then, is what level of personal sacrifice would He expect of me in going about helping my sister and her family?
I do not think that one answer to that question would fit all people. Everyone’s capacities and situations are unique. I guess I can only answer this question for me. I could not sleep at night if I knew my sister and her family were passing through such difficult temporal trials and I was to do nothing. I would die of guilt and self-loathing if I turned my back on her. For me and my family (my wife and children), we would make personal sacrifices to help them as much as we could. Cousins would bunk up with cousins, people would sleep in tents in the backyard if necessary, and we would eliminate personal perks if it would provide the needed resources to help. We would make the needed personal sacrifices to ensure that we were doing all we could to help my sister and her family.
Now, linking this analogy to illegal immigration, one could accurately say that it would not be right for my sister to show up uninvited at my house with a moving van and move right in. However, I would ask again, would it be right for me to turn a blind eye when I knew my sister was living in such situations and I had done nothing to try and help? Who would the Judge be less pleased with? I believe King Benjamin (Mosiah 4:16-18) gives some counsel to this matter, calling to repentance those who would stay their hand in the face of the beggar’s plea. I can only imagine how much more damning King Benjamin’s words might have been to me if the beggar was my flesh-and-bones sister.
A few more questions for me to ponder:
Besides the obvious answer of quantity, exactly what is the difference between my flesh-and-blood siblings and my spiritual siblings? What is my obligation towards them? In my pre-mortal existence, was I not just as close to them as to my flesh-and-blood siblings now. Shouldn’t I feel a commitment towards helping them as well?
The prophet, Joseph Smith once said, “No man filled with the love of God is content to bless his family alone but ranges through the whole earth seeking to bless the entire human race.”
If I really believe that all of mankind are, in actuality, my spiritual brothers and sisters I can see no other position than the position of working to help those who are in desperate situations. I feel compelled to bless the lives of those within my power to do so. Now obviously, I can only do so much. I can’t save every starving person in the world nor every starving person in Mexico nor even the starving in the smallest village in the most remote corner of Mexico. However, because I truly believe they are my spiritual brothers and sisters, then I feel an obligation to try and help as many as I can; at least that is the expectation I believe the Lord has of me. If I fail to follow those beliefs, then to say I believe all of mankind to be my spiritual brothers and sisters is little more than Sunday School rhetoric.
