May 19th

No one was home. I could sneak into my brother’s room undetected and search through his messy arrangements of books to find the two I wanted—Big Red and Irish Red! Once I had them in hand, I headed to the bookshelf in my bedroom where there was a gaping hole. Carefully I placed both paperbacks in the tidy line-up of books, arranged alphabetically by author. Once again, they were MINE. (At least for a few days or a week—until my brother performed a similar covert operation and “stoled” the books back!)  His claim to these Jim Kjelgaard books was that he had read them first. My claim was that he had “given” them to me to read—and (the ethical argument) that I tended to take better care of books than he did! 
       I associate this adolescent “war” with Paul’s notion of “living in the flesh.” Both my brother and I wanted to have, to own, to control, those paperbacks. Paul argues that such a materialistic way of life leads to conflict, that there is a better way to pursue happiness. He called this other way “living in the spirit.” Had my brother or I been living in the spirit, we would have been grateful for the experience of reading Big Red and Irish Red—but we would not have clung to the corporal books themselves so tightly. Living in the spirit is characterized by appreciation and sharing, not covetousness and possession. 
       My brother won the war for the Jim Kjelgaard books. When he moved out of our parents’ home, he took the paperbacks with him.  They were on a bookshelf—I am sure a messy one—when a fire broke out and destroyed them.  To the best of my knowledge, those two paperbacks had never been enjoyed by anyone besides my brother and myself before they were incinerated.