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Finding Your Soul

by David Anderson

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Blood is Thicker

July 8, 2013 by David Anderson 3 Comments

My Brothers and Sisters with Dad: Reunion 2013
My Brothers and Sisters with Dad: Reunion 2013

This morning I was on the phone with a colleague. As we were winding down our conversation I mentioned that I had just returned from my annual family reunion. “Oh,” he said, “you know what my family calls those annual get-togethers? Dysfunction Junction.” We had a laugh.

Families and their awkward attempts at reunion are an easy mark for critics and comedians. We love each other (in my case, my father, my six siblings and their families, all numbering about 70), but we don’t always know how to be with one another. At moments of high drama, when schism threatened, my mother would always deliver that well-known line, “Blood is thicker than water.” Yes, but as Mignon McLaughlin acidly observed, “There’s an awful lot of blood around that water is thicker than.”

Still, I love my family. Blood and all. We’ve had fights and hurts, but we keep coming together. At some point—maybe it was the death of my mother—we instinctively, quietly decided that we ought to stop trying to change each other and just try being with each other. It’s a work in progress, but it’s working.

I’m a firm believer that all our primary relationships—marriage, children, mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, deep friendships—are the proving ground of the soul. If the spiritual life is all about a love relationship with God, then our earthly loves are where we learn to persevere and trust, to forgive and endure, to hold on in spite of difference, to never let go.

That is how God loves us, and—thanks to families—that is how we learn every day to love something like God does.

Filed Under: Conflict, Family, Forgiveness, Grace, Identity, Love

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Kathy says

    July 8, 2013 at 8:41 am

    I appreciate your insights. Family is important to me also and I know how many obstacles there are to having a reunion. I’m glad you had some time together.

    Reply
  2. clark johnson says

    July 9, 2013 at 10:12 am

    Hi David A handsome group, even you! Did you say 70 offspring? Some reunion! Blessings clark

    Reply
  3. Ginny Lovas says

    July 9, 2013 at 10:51 pm

    Since our family is all over the place, we do not get together often enough! Recently, We had a cousin from Texas contact us, and he came to visit our CT family. What a wonderful time we had! In our case, it was looking at the family tree and trying to figure everything out. I finally discoverd who my father was named after (found out he was my Dad;s Uncle who was a Circus Clown). What fun! Wish I had known him!

    Family – very important – especially to an only child!

    Ginny

    Reply

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