Learning From My Son

STEP 21 LEARNING FROM MY SON

Judy and I are spending a few wonderful days visiting my son and family in Ottawa. A glorious winter setting of warmth, good food, fire place, shared memories and hopes. If I am a complete failure in all other aspects of life, if I arrive at some pearly gates and a St. Peter has before him multiple sheets of my failures and shortcomings I am confident that if I remind him that my son is my son I will be welcomed into the fold on that recommendation alone.
He is well aware that he is a child of God. I am his favourite preacher but he still supports and frequents the Unitarian Church and the Friends. He is a wonderful father and friend to many, including his fellow workers. He strives to live faithfully in his urban society and job, having no television or car. Every time we visit I am amazed at feeling so much at home in his home and by how encouraged and invigorated I am by the whole experience. Even with all the busy people traffic and the noise from the children I am getting so much done! I'll write a bit, share a bit, read stuff to him, read stuff that he has to share, talk some more, write some more, shovel some snow, eat some chocolate, drink some wine, write some more, listen to some music, play some music, write some more, eat some more, sip some more, play with my grand daughter some more, etc, etc.. How the time flies. How the pages get filled!
When I become discouraged, as I often do, I only have to think of him to be smartened up. What a gift to me and to the world! When I leave here in a couple days I'll have more contacts and resources than I'll be able to use in a month. And enough new ideas to toss around for a year.
How rare and wonderful to have family really be connected at the sole level. So often family are just family, loved but not really shared with because of the differences in values and perceptions. The family I came from is like that. We enjoy each other but on an increasingly superficial level. We long ago learned what topics we could talk about and what we couldn't and so we do and don't. There's no sense in arguing at our rare and brief reunions.
Discipleship calls us to a love that is deeper than family, that indeed goes beyond any bounds or limits, that is scandalous in its unidentifiability. It has no rules other than itself and recongizes to critique. It is more important than any earthly marriage and in fact is radically anti “family” in value, much to the shargin of our so-called fundamentalist cousins. The earliest, the very first mention of the early Christians (The People of the Way) was in a journal of a Roman governor of a province in Asia Minor complaining about this new group who was destroying the peace of the countryside by urging children (adults) to leave their families and who were even destroying marriages! Imagine putting faithfulness and love before the customs and bonds of society!
We forget or tend to ignore the fact that Jesus was killed for some very good reasons and his followers were not popular with the establishment until the movement was watered down and adopted by Constantine some two hundred years later. How wonderful to share God's Call with others! Doubly wonderful when it is one you are already one with. Family within Family. Thank you, Son.

"Don't expect miracles, but recognize them when they happen." - Traditional Jewish saying