Second Thoughts – My Beloved Brother

Greetings Dear Reader,

Sometimes I will end the day with thoughts that are important to get out.  Usually I just write them and put them in my journal folder.  I have chosen that on occasion I will share them with you Dear Reader.  My Brother has been and always shall be my friend.

Today my Brother posted the following.  He captured a vast part of the essence of my heart and the lessons of Star Trek so well in homage to Leonard Nimoy.  What follows are my Brother's words:

By the time I had reached the age of 5, my brother Michael was already a huge Star Trek fan. When he would sometimes watch me in the evenings, he would show me episodes of his favorite television program and reassure me that the dangers were only theatrical and the aliens on the program were costumed people. As a result of this, along with my family's diverse pool of friends, physical differences were a non-sequiter in my mind. People were people.

As I grew to know and love my brother over the years, his love of this long running series of shows and it's many spin-offs made more sense to me. We were, after all, growing up in the "post"-Jim Crowe South during the Cuban missle crisis, the Cold War and the Space Race. This program was set in a world post-recovery-from-nuclear-apocalypse, in a culture that celebrated it's attainment of global peace, and took place on a ship with Russian and Asian helmsman, an African female communications officer, a Scottish engineer and aliens aboard played by a cast perhaps more diverse than the fictitious crew itself- including one "pointy-eared, cold-blooded" Vulcan, of course.

My brother was and is a person of principle and, not only because of a love for the idea of space travel, but because this cast and director were coming strongly against so many unjust cultural norms and social dogmas, it made perfect sense for him to be drawn to it. Leonard Nimoy was a huge part of this. A Jewish-born actor, working with the first African American actress to attain such a key role on any television program at that time in history- a fact that later inspired Whoopie Goldberg to request a role on Star Trek The Next Generation- Nimoy infused the program with his own values and offered many ideas to the director. As a result, it was years ahead of its time, both thematically and literally; a rallying point for change in the segment of the culture that embraced it. Several NASA scientists even site Star Trek as one of their key sources of inspiration leading to the pursuit of a career in space aeronautics and it's related scientific fields.

The loss of Leonard Nimoy today was not an emotional event for me as it was for my brother, but I understand the loss it represents to the generation and culture that existed when we were younger, and to the global realities we still must overcome in the realms of racism in any form, sexual slavery- primarily of young females- globally, genocide, war and persecution as they exist today. I think it fitting that today is not only now the anniversary of Leonard Nimoy's passing, but was also- through the End It campaign- an international day of remembrance for those who are trafficked globally as slaves.

It was Nimoy's character Spock who once said, "The good of the many outweighs the good of the one.", and although his friend Kirk (William Shatner) argued rightly that "the good of the one sometimes outweighs the good of the many", I think the point our generation took from the values these men's characters espoused and brought to their craft was that there is a better way to live in community together here on earth. Nimoy had much to do with those values being poured into his generation and I hope we can each find ways to do the same in our own. RIP Leonard Nimoy

Wishing you joy in the journey,

Aramis Thorn

Mat 13:52 So Jesus said to them, "That is why every writer who has become a disciple of Christ’s rule of the universe is like a home owner. He liberally hands out new and old things from his great treasure store.”

(͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)