We are not the Waltons...

God wants to know us... in total depth and reality, the darkness as well as the light, the anger as well as the love. Morton Kelsey


It was a wonderful week at the beach... for all twelve of us. Our three children, Megan, Alison and Adam with their partners in life, Mike, David and Michelle... the four grandsons, Matthew, Mason, Mead and Aidan... and us, the grandparents under one roof, slept and ate and played and laughed and yelled and were happy and grumpy together all week long. Every day was an adventure in family living.
Remember the Waltons? That T.V. family in the Virginia mountains who were scrappy and plucky, full of love and generosity even in the midst of the Great Depression? The ones who got crossways sometimes but always seemed to work it out in an hour or so? I loved the intergenerational family unit on that show, partly because my grandparents were such an important part of my childhood and I always wanted them to live near us, and partly because there was always someone else to go to besides your parents for affirmation and instruction.
Real family is never so neat and tidy as the Waltons. Our differences, gifts from God, pose challenges to our own particular ways of being. We have to move over, share, hush up, bite our tongues, smoosh together sometimes when we would rather be alone, give up the illusion of being the sole controller of our fate. We come into being in families and we live in the reality of being known by those who birthed us and those who watched us grow... parents, siblings, cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents. They know us in ways that are blood kin ways of knowing, living with us for a lifetime, seeing us stumble and rise to walk again, loving us through all of life.
This knowledge can be clear sighted or it can be caught in a myopic pattern that allows no room for growth or change. Most of us grow out of our childhood ways of being and become adults influenced by our past but not children any longer. Sometimes families keep us type cast as the princess, or the problem child, or the athlete, or the funny one, or the peacemaker. Those pieces of who we were/are rarely define our whole selves as grownups. It can be lovely to visit the Land of What Once Was (perhaps) but it can be deadly to live there.
Our families can be lighthouses illuminating the journey, a turning dynamic light that allows us to see what might lie ahead. Or, they can be a fixed source of light with only one path lit up and not much room for exploration. Both kinds of families have darkness as well as light and choose different ways of moving through it.
Morton Kelsey’s quote reminds me that we are all part of a much larger family, the Family of God. In this family there is room for all of who we are and a saved place at the table for family meals. We just have to show up, wounded, weary, wicked and whomped though we may be, to be loved and soothed. We can bring our funny, joyful, smart mouthed selves to the table and everyone will laugh at our jokes. God will see and know our angers and hurts, our dark places that live next to our light filled loving selves and all will be well. So today, I give thanks for families, our initiation into the world and a practice time for the Family of God.