What I Learned About Church People Almost a Year Ago

(THIS IS PART TWO READ THE PREVIOUS ONE!)
December 31, 2008 - Wednesday

What I learned in Church
Current mood: determined
Category: Religion and Philosophy
.Many times the weaker of us reflect on what their parents/family did wrong or didn't do right as an excuse for where they are now. It is easy to let the immediate past block us from reflection on our ancestors. All of us have a past that includes many wars, genocides, plagues or any one of a million disasters, which could have ended our family trees long ago. We are descendent of survivors, of people with the vision and good fortune to prepare a future for us. We all have a purpose, which often includes the visions of our ancestors. We honor them by, at the very least, never giving up.

And the answer to my "Church People" question comes as soon as I return to church. (I was prepared to cuss out all of my readers for not giving me the answers) See how good God is!

The answer is - family.

Christmas threw me off with the scriptures for the week. I didn't get to read them on my own so, let's do it with out them this time. This is more about us as a collective of individuals anyway. In fact lets explore family. From Webster's:

1fam·i·ly

Function: noun

Etymology: Middle English familie, from Latin familia household (including servants as well as kin of the householder), from famulus servant

Date: 15th century

1: a group of individuals living under one roof and usually under one head : household

2 a: a group of persons of common ancestry : clan b: a people or group of peoples regarded as deriving from a common stock : race

3 a: a group of people united by certain convictions or a common affiliation : fellowship b: the staff of a high official (as the President)

4: a group of things related by common characteristics: as a: a closely related series of elements or chemical compounds b: a group of soils with similar chemical and physical properties (as texture, pH, and mineral content) that comprise a category ranking above the series and below the subgroup in soil classification c: a group of related languages descended from a single ancestral language

5 a: the basic unit in society traditionally consisting of two parents rearing their children ; also : any of various social units differing from but regarded as equivalent to the traditional family family> b: spouse and children family>

6 a: a group of related plants or animals forming a category ranking above a genus and below an order and usually comprising several to many genera bin livestock breeding (1): the descendants or line of a particular individual especially of some outstanding female (2): an identifiable strain within a breed

7: a set of curves or surfaces whose equations differ only in parameters

8: a unit of a crime syndicate (as the Mafia) operating within a geographic area

All this time the answer was right in front of my face. I have so many families. I have my real family (with little subsets with that), my work family, my MySpace family, My Facebook, my school, my local family, my Los Angeles fam, my New Orleans fam…

All of them have their distinct characteristics. I am tied to the members of each of those families by a common bond that is stronger than all the corruption and fakery that exists within ALL of my families. And I make an effort to be active or at least present in all of my families.

So what was my hold up with the one family which should have the strongest bond. I mean I could go through one through eight of the definition and only have trouble finding a connection using number seven. I can even do number eight! After all, I am catholic.

The way Deacon Chester described it is more simple: We may feel alone in the world for six days out of the week. On Sunday we know we can come "home" to our church family. We can feel safe within the confines of this gathering of like-minded individuals. In my church, that's actually one of the reasons I chose it. The uniformity of our worship ceremony is easily apparent and bonds us all together for an hour and a half.

So now that I want more, I guess I just deal with it the way I deal with all my other families. Learn who to deal with and who not to. The good thing about this church family is that when people try to latch onto me like they do in all my other families, at least they are people who are trying to live by a higher spiritual standard. If I have to dodge low-lifes anyway, it may as well be low –lifes who know how to pray.