We Are Family!

Those are powerful words from David Brooks in a New York Times opinion piece this morning. 

Years ago, when I worked with struggling kids who often came from some really struggling and dysfunctional family situations, one thing always amazed me. It was the lengths many of those kids would go to to defend their family. 

I'd have young teenage boys, whose dads were incarcerated or who were out on the streets dealing drugs, passionately suggest to me their dads were the best dads ever. To them, their dads were father of the year candidates and I was the one who had a problem if I for any reason refused to vote for them. 

I learned there is just some flavor of loyalty, some sense of we are in this together, that comes from simply knowing we are family. 

When it comes to my faith, and this undercurrent of desire I have for you to embrace the same faith I do, I suppose that desire is fueled by that family piece first and foremost. The bible says God created us all in his image. God was the first to sing "we ARE family

I know there's this thing about heaven and hell, salvation, give your life to Jesus. I know all of those things you'll hear from folks trying to "win your soul." Me, long before any of that, though, I just want us to somehow come to believe we're all in this together. 

I think we most quickly get to that place when we believe from a truly deep place in our hearts that we are all one family. From a place that says I don't care what your issues are or who you voted for or how much money you have - you're my family. And I'm going to nominate you for dad of the year every time, no matter what. 

It's not such a radical starting point. Not really. 

This bible that says God created us - it also says God is love. And when God came down to hang out with us on earth - to say I am an intimate and real part of this family, not just a character you'll read about in the story of Genesis - a group of scholars challenged him to define what this family is about. And he told them: my family is about love one another at all costs. 
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God said my family isn't the most relevant unit of society. It's the only unit. I suppose that comes off as authoritarian and self-centered and radical - this God who insists that he's our father and we are all one family. A family created to love one another - and not just love EVEN the family members who are struggling to navigate this life thing - but MOSTLY those family members. 

It's radical. I get it. But I look around, and I see how we are navigating the world under the belief we are all from a zillion different families. And many days that, to me, looks more like we're fighting WITH and not FOR one another. 

I look back and think those kids were on to something. They loved their families in spite of a lot of things most days. They loved them because they were family.