A World of Family

" Brothers and sisters: Put on, holy and beloved, heartfelt compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience, bearing with one another and forgiving one another. And over all these put on Love, that is, the bond of perfection.  And let the Peace of Christ control your hearts, the Peace into which you were also called in one body. And be thankful." --[Colossians 3: 12-21.]


Each Christmas, I feel so very deeply the dysfunction in the family I grew up with. My mother, who was so emotionally fragile, anxious, depressed, feeling as if she alone was responsible for the Universe. My father, who was so bitter and angry, taking his anger out on me, retreating from the world in resentment, as if all that he felt he was owed in life would always be out of  his reach. My sibling, hating me because he believed I was the favorite, but that special attention made manifest only in how I had become the scapegoat for all that was distorted in our family.

 In my youth, I wanted the Holy Family to be perfect. Even if my own family was so very imperfect, I searched for the perfect model of Family.

But as I matured, I realized that I am so very flawed; as is everyone around me. I began to almost resent this Perfect Family. WHO can ever match their perfection? I spent years in dismay at the family I had been given.

Today, I look around my world and I see very little "heartfelt compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, forbearance [letting small rebuffs go]". I saw no Love as a child. There is so little Peace in our world.

We persist in shouting our beliefs at each other, interrupting so as to destroy any possibility of dialogue, as if saying the same thing over and over, only  louder and louder, will convince anyone.

As I re-read the story of the Nativity, I realize that the Holy Family, although Divinely created, is not entirely "by the script".  They were not "perfect"! What a relief!

Joseph was a lowly carpenter. Mary was a peasant girl, probably a teen, probably illiterate. When Joseph found out that she was pregnant, he almost walked away from Mary. But resolved to stand by her and marry her.

Jesus was, therefore, adopted! In the recent past, some may have seen adoption as shameful, a failure in a relationship. Here, however, adoption is a blessing. A miracle!

I always wanted Jesus, Mary and Joseph to "live happily ever after." But, by the age of thirteen, Jesus had left home to learn and preach in the Temple. His parents, alarmed at His disappearance, searched for Him for days. (And so, in modern terms, would we say that Jesus was a runaway?)

When His family found him at the Temple, it was not a joyful reunion. "Someone told Him, 'Look, your mother and brothers are standing outside, wanting to speak to you.' But Jesus replied, 'Who is My mother and who are my brothers?' Pointing to His disciples, He said, 'Here are My mother and My brothers.' " -[ Matthew 12: 47-49].

And SO, Jesus began His ministry by regarding ALL as His Family.

It pains me to hear the maligning of the Christian Faith, as so very intolerant and petty and narrow. For this is nowhere in the Bible, nor in Jesus' beliefs. Jesus' life began with the Holy Family. Jesus lived His life thereafter, regarding the whole world as His Family.

Jesus did not marginalize those whom Society feared or distrusted. Jesus touched and healed a leper. -[Matthew 5].

Jesus did not ostracize those in Society who were powerful and abused that power. He dined with tax collectors, those greedy men who charged taxes and then, extorted premiums for themselves. -[Mark 2: 15].

Jesus encountered a woman, out in public, at Jacob's well, and a Samaritan woman at that, and a woman living with a man not her husband. And yet, Jesus spoke to her openly and compassionately.

Today, those who would say that Christians are a hard-hearted, intolerant, hateful lot, are not following the Jesus whom I know.

Martin Luther King himself preached this, when he said, "In a real sense, all life is inter-related. All men are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny."

Or, as Mother Teresa once said, 'Do we forget that we belong to each other?'

And so I see, that it does not matter if I come from a perfect family or not; it does not matter if I am faulty and all too human.

We are "all one body". If only we all acted this way. If everyone is my Family, and we are all inter-related, then everyone is my Beloved. Then to all, I will endeavor to show "heartfelt compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.

And above all, Love.

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