When kids are, ya know, kids, and these kids are, ya know, siblings, it’s quite common for them to, ya know, bicker. 

Without too much hyperbole, these kids — siblings — do not just bicker: many make it their personal goal to wreak as much havoc on the other sibling as possible each and every day. From dawn till dusk, it is war!

And even if it is not an intentional war that they embark on everyday, there are certainly at least many individual battles that blow up over petty reasons, very frequently. For example: I wanted the last chicken nugget from the platter, but you took it, therefore I will squeeze ketchup all over your hair. If there is no ketchup available, I will at least smack you over the head, and if I don’t draw blood, I will at least draw some tears! 

And then the adults, with the perspective of having grown through the same thing, look at these petty squabbles as “brotherly love” (or with whichever pronoun is appropriate). They understand the fighting to be normal — they are just growing up!

And surely, as they grow older, these same siblings, who used to be each other’s greatest tormentors — the very bane of each other’s existence — become best friends. It takes some longer than others, but eventually, their relationship evolves, and the love that binds them is unbreakable. 

…

Now, look at the hatred, war, and murder in this world. We look at it all, and we wonder… why? So much blood spilled, and lives torn apart, over what?

Instead of fighting each other for the last chicken nugget, we fight each other for the last drop of water, or for the last drop of oil, or for the last plot of land. Just like the siblings, we are at war with each other for things that, from a higher perspective, are small.

And yet, do we not simply need time to grow up, as siblings do, albeit on a larger scale?

Truthfully I tell you, the beings more advanced than us, look at us the same way as we look at young, bickering siblings. As parents would, they look at us, and they say, “They are learning; they are growing together.”

They understand that, as the siblings, once we “grow up,” we will become aware of the inseparable bond that ties us together. The coin will turn over, and what appeared as hate, will appear as love. Each one of us will be an irreplaceable part of each other’s heart, as happens with siblings once they grow up.

We bicker now, and wage war on each other every day… but we are just growing up.

To all of the suffering, hatred, and violence in the world, I look, and I say,

“Brotherly love.”