God’s Grace Through Non-Hallmark Families
“Mary pondered these things in her heart.”
At times, I playfully use Hallmark moments as a foil to real life people and relationships that are not usually as cute, gooey, or ‘religiousy’. In case you missed it, Sunday is Mother’s Day…also Festival of the Christian Family for United Methodists. Some family ‘items’ I have noticed over the years…
ITEM 1: BIBLICAL FAMILIES. I am always amused at calls to return to the ‘Biblical family’. The Adamson’s…Jacobson’s …Davidson’s? Really? Even the Carpenterson’s may be a holy family, but are far from a replicable model. The Biblical vision of life is not a going back…but forward.
ITEM 2: REAL RESOURCES FOR REAL FAMILIES. There are King David’s challenges with fidelity and parenting. How God used for good what started as (sport coat not carpenter) Joseph’s brothers throwing him in a ditch. How Mary and Joseph struggle with their bafflingly special son. Such help our real life struggles to love, forgive, and go on. On my trek from teenage son, to older brother, to father myself…I have ascending views of the Prodigal Son(s)' Father for my life. How about some tribute to the mother’s plight to put up with all three of those guys?
ITEM 3: BROADWAY PARENTS. The most powerful song in PHANTOM OF THE OPERA for me is Christine’s “Wishing You Were Here Again” about missing her father. Currently, in HAMILTON, much of the meaning of Alexander’s life is overcoming his absent father; in WAITRESS, Jenna navigates the ups and downs of her life guided by the ‘pie-making’ memories of her mother; in KINKY BOOTS, both lead men struggle with measuring and not measuring up to their fathers' dreams.
Point? Plays, movies, TV shows, and books, beyond the romance stuff, note how much family, parent, sibling situations are parsed for humor and hope.
ITEM 4: LOVING DYSFUNCTIONAL FAMILIES. My grandmother Morgan’s words echo in my ears about not discussing family matters outside the family…“Don’t tell your guts!” Still, I have sought to be respectfully transparent about the struggles my parents had with their lives. Their love for their children never wavered. With our family, and many I know as a person and pastor, I have come to realize most all of us are products of loving dysfunctional… far from perfect…families. With all our imperfections, this makes our love for one another an amazing grace thing.
ITEM 5: DOMESTIC ABUSE IS NEVER OK. First UMC Birmingham has initiated an emphasis on recognizing and responding to family violence. Our Annual Conference is extending this effort. Such abuse is most often verbal, emotional, and/or physical mistreatment by men of women, usually husband of wife. Biblical forgiveness, turning the cheek, and going second miles DO NOT translate as accepting abuse. Plaintive promises never to do it again are seldom if ever kept.
Such abuse – from mood terrorism to physical mistreatment – is no respecter of socio-economic class – though likely more hidden in upper-scale homes. If you are on the inside, find a way to reach out. If you are on the outside, act with extreme caution – touch base with a professional.
ITEM 6: BEYOND BIOLOGICAL PARENTING. Revered developmental psychologist Erik Erikson spoke of a key task-opportunity of mature adults as generativity. As crucial as the physical generation of offspring is, this is about much more. Generativity is the capacity of adults to nurture children, for one generation to equip the next generation to survive and thrive.
Like many, I am the ‘child’ of Sunday-public-under/graduate schoolteachers and other mentors who may or may not had biological progeny of their own, but whose parenthood-generativity abounds in countless lives. I am resisting the temptation to share my long list.
ITEM 7: THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS & SACRAMENT OF THE FOREHEAD RED SPLOTCH. Not proven in debate, though authenticated in experience, we encounter those we love, now with God, are not through with us, nor we with them. I have mentioned my occasional self-administered forehead slap. It happens months, years, or decades later. Oh! Now I get it. How I yearn somehow to say a long overdue ‘thank you’ or ‘I’m sorry’. I hope they can see my grateful, repentant splotch from the heavenly balcony.
BTW: As pictured, I buy my share of Hallmark cards, also like to get them.