I miss you. I see you. I love you. You belong here. These are the expressions of family. These may have been words we’ve heard from our mothers, or words we’ve heard from our fathers. They may have been words we heard from those who have shaped us and made us who we are.They are the kind of words we can never heard enough. They never get old. Inside each one of us there is the memory of these phrases, or the gap where we wish those words rested. For some of us, these were never words we heard, but were nonetheless communicated – through a look,through a touch, through a fragrance, or a story
We are currently in the middle of writing an important story about family. Common words in our time are borders, division, partisan, illegal,alien. Our policies in this nation tell a story: this land is not yours. These are not your people. You need to earn a sense of belonging. You need someone here who can vouch for you, and take you in. These stories are quite old. They are older than our country. They are older than any one of us.
The wonderful thing about stories is that no matter how many times you tell them, they are just stories. Stories are the mirrors we hold up to understand who we are. When we choose a different mirror, we choose a different understanding. The mirrors we use to look at and understand ourselves become the shapers of our destiny.
Right now we are wondering what that destiny is. You may be wondering that right now. What is your purpose? What is the purpose of you being alive at this moment? There are many mirrors to choose from,many stories. The stories we sometimes get attracted to are the ones that validate our attempts to stay the same: to find a story that makes some sense even if it keeps us stuck. We do this all the time with our family. “My family was like this, so that is why I’m like that. I will never, ever be like that.Well, I guess that is something I just inherited.”
This is all true but it doesn’t go far enough. Inside the crevices, inside the gaps of our stories, lies the true meaning of family. It turns out that family may not be something limited to a select few human persons, it may not be limited to just human beings.Across the globe, young people are opening us up to a definition of family that challenges us to tell a different story. It’s not a story based on the color of our skin, our ancestry, or the place or culture we were born. It’s not a story based on nationalism. It’s not a story based on who deserves to feel loved and accepted, a story of the lucky privileged, the despised and feared. It’s not a story based on conservation of a set of values that are guaranteed to narrow our lives into something manageable.
It’s a wild story. It’s a story about trees and water. It’s a story about amazing grace. It’s a story of redemption. It’s redemption from a story that has grown old, tired, and is threatening our very life as a species. It’s redemption from a story that is threatening our political life, threatening our environmental life, threatening our personal life. The meaning of family is amazing. It’s a meaning that needs to be felt to be believed, and we are all on the cusp of feeling it. We are not here just because we think we might belong. We are here because creation notices and cares if we’re not.
