Brotherly Love

“I See”

“What do you see?

What I see and what you see, could it possibly be, that we may see is differently?

That doesn't make me right and you wrong we're just willing to stubbornly stand alone.

We can agree to disagree which is so weird to me. What solution have we come to? Is there something else we can do?

It’s through the eyes of the beholder. Ask her, ask him exactly what do you see? To the question must be asked whatever it may be. Perspective or perception? What is really to blame and be it to our shame? Because what we’re really saying, is the same”. The End

    James insisted on my reading this poem. I tried to see it his way. He thought this poem would help, but it didn’t, not at first.  You’d think it would have, he’s my identical twin brother. We are so much alike in so many ways but there are times we just don’t see eye to eye, and this is one. It started back when we were freshmen in college both of us majoring in psychology. I wanted to be a doctor, James wanting to be a college professor. Well as in most psychology classes the subject of relationships comes up one way or another. I perhaps should stop here and introduce myself, I’m John. I know it sounds like the beginning of the names of the twelve disciples. We were teased throughout grade school for our names. We come from a religious family so there goes our names. My mother Mary thought James and John would be easier to pronounce and Paul and Saul didn’t sit right with her. My father Peter Powers was the assistant youth pastor at the First Baptist church we attended. So, you can imagine we heard all types of sermons, etc. The one that most intrigue me and my brother were the ones about love. This is one of the many subjects we agreed on but at the same time we didn’t. We didn’t realize how far apart we were in our perspective on love until we were older.

    Love, itself is a word that’s hard to explain, James would say. I always said that love is just love and what’s hard about that. I love you; you love me. James’s argument stayed true, but what is love. While in college this was our monthly topic of discussion, especially whenever one of us got involved with a young lady. Whenever one of us got serious in a particular relationship with the young lady and the word love came up. James and I took many of the same classes. We however tried our best to take them on different days and at different times. Our friends thought we did that so not to confuse the professors, which was totally not true. We did that so we wouldn’t be confrontational with each other on certain subjects of which we may not have agreed. Because as I said though we were identical we didn’t always agree.

   James while in college had many relationships none lasting very long. He never got serious with any one girl like I would. One of my relationships lasted a whole two years. James longest was a semester. He felt especially as freshmen we shouldn’t get too serious too fast. He felt we had lots of time to find the right one. James ran from any girl that would use the L word, love. I felt he had a point to a degree. Myself, when a girl told me she loved me I’d say it right back, because I did. I loved them as a person. I wished them well and no ill would come to them etc. I felt like I did love them. Weil, James would get upset with me. On more than one occasion he’d tell me I did not love those girl and I should be ashamed for telling them that. I’d argue, “well what was I supposed to say, nothing. Oh, yeah, I’d do like you James, I’ll call them as soon as I got home from a date and break up with them with no decent explanation except that they said, I love you? James would say, “boy you don’t have the slightest idea what love is.” He might have been right. I don’t think I did in its truest sense. All I knew is that God loved me, Jesus loved me, James and my parents loved me. But did these girls love me. I would have like to think so. So, I made up in my mind the next girl that told me she loved me, I would ask her how she knew she loved me. There, I thought would be my quest to try and figure out James’s philosophy on love. Why did he feel it was hard to explain and why did he run from it? It wasn’t until years later that he shared it with me, and I better understood his stance on it. He later in life did get to the place where he would say I love you back. However, he would make it clear he was not in love with them. And of course, that would start an argument. The young lady could not understand that.  To those who would take the time to listen to his explanation. They would learn that to James love was a sacred word and it wasn’t to be used lightly. He matured and wasn’t running away anymore as he did in college, he simply felt it necessary to make it clear.

    He shared with me the different types of love. His love for our family was different from his love for his wife. Yes, James finally married, and it was to Jerri Lee-Powers he was able to say, I’m in love with you. How he became so particular about love I don’t know, I guess it was all the sermons we heard and the psychology classes we took. He even once told me he never uses the word love when it came to inanimate objects. I asked him to explain that. What he said next blew me away. He said love is a sacrificial word. He continues and says like John 3:16 “For God so love the world He gave His only begotten son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” God sacrificed His Son, His son Jesus sacrificed His life. Why? because they loved us. So, I don’t ever say I love something that cannot sacrifice for me. I was as I said blown away. That was deep, I thought but it made sense. So, I try my best to never say things like I love a particular food or car or whatever.

    He is a smart dude, good husband, father, son and brother. He’s the oldest but not by much, a couple of minutes or so. And I Love Him.