HOME BASE

Some of the advertisements for Ancestry.com really blow my mind.  The ones about using DNA to discover where on the planet your genetics originated are one thing, and maybe everyone should have a dose of reality in their ethnicity; it might do the world some good.

It's the other ads, the ones of folks saying that they discovered relatives they never knew they had - people only one or two generations away from their own.  I ask you; how is that even possible?  How can families be so loosely associated that they have lost knowledge of each other in such a short period of time? I can't imagine not knowing all my family connections going back for multiple generations - that's what families do.  That's what families are.

But then, maybe I've just had the good fortune to be included in some pretty stellar families and have set my 'family-hood' bar higher than most.

Some families have never organized a family reunion; each branch of the family tree spreading in separate directions through laziness or lack of interest.  They are the ones who need Ancestry.com to track down relatives.

Other families throw everything they have into getting everyone together; a massive undertaking and to be admired for the work and commitment done by the organizing committee.  It's common at these affairs for the different family branches wear colour coded t-shirts so folks can try to keep semi-strangers sorted.

And then there's the people who do it every year with the motto of whoever can make it, come on down!  It's low key, laidback, and lovely.  These people know everyone by first names, are excited to meet new babies, have all the little cousins play together, and sit around a campfire talking of everything from jobs, trips, plans, ailments, recipes, and hobbies, picking up the threads of conversations started around last year's fire as if they happened yesterday. 

There are also two kinds of family building.  To some people 'family' is an exclusive term.  They see the world in terms of 'them' and 'us', drawing a dividing line between who they are, and everyone else who isn't quite so lucky.  I'm not saying that this approach is wrong, but my observation is that it is probably pretty lonely.

The other extreme is a family founded on inclusiveness.  This is my experience, and there is no way any of the DNA search companies would be able to figure us out.

The standard joke about a family reunion not being a good place to look for future spouses hardly holds water when there are kids from second marriages and cousins of step grand children mixed in with the regulars, all of them welcomed as full family with no reservation.  In-laws, out-laws, second marriages, children from previous relationships ... it's all the same to us.  Come in, sit down, and have something to eat!

This year's gathering was special, being held at the family's home base - the original family farm now held by a fourth generation.   Although the landscape of the yard has changed over the years it still holds enough landmarks to anchor memories of our younger selves.  And right around the corner we gathered Sunday morning in the church (because that's the kind of thing this family does) and took part in a lay service (because, again, that is what this family does).  In reflection on the reading about faith and love the brother who spoke gave credit for his family's faith and capacity for love to his parents' example. I've been thinking a lot about that while I worked on what I wanted to write today.

I absolutely agree that these people were good people and that they showed love and faith in their everyday lives, but it seems to me that the focus is too narrow if we single out their generation alone.  The big picture is that obviously these two good people didn't appear out of a vacuum.  They came from good people just as surely as they brought forth more good people.  We are all welcoming and inclusive and kind, partly because of the example set for us, but also because it is just in us to be welcoming and inclusive and kind.  We are all, singly, an example of the whole.  It connects us much more profoundly than DNA.

We also have a tendency to have fun, eat too much, laugh a lot, cuddle babies, problem solve, tell stories, play games, and give each other  a hard time.  Pretty normal family stuff in my world.