familial sentiments

My mom would hug almost everyone that came into our house when I was kid. Even my friends who had no desire to be hugged and just stood there and got squeezed. My brothers and I always had people over to our house growing up. My dad, though certainly not a hugger, did enjoy being able to provide for a house the people would want to frequent. My friends seemed to enjoy coming over, but my house certainly wasn’t of the keg-throwing party while mom and dad are gone types. Seems like my parents were involved in most things at my house.

The more I think back on it and my experiences in the homes of others, this wasn’t/isn’t that normal. Why did my friends seem to enjoy coming over and playing pool and in the pool and spending the night watching movies, all with my parents not too far away? The only thing that seems to make sense is that my parents loved having people over. But even more than that – they wanted to love the people that came over.

My parents love each other and my brothers very much. This is more than I can say for most of my friends’ experiences growing up in broken homes, houses without any discipline, or total family wrecks. They practically modeled love to me and my friends just about all the time, seeking to serve and be open for hurts and pains, throwing parties and approving of their children’s generally well-mannered social lives. It wasn’t an effort at showing off, nor could me or any of my friends point to it as such. But looking back – love is most certainly what it was/is.

Maybe my inclination and desire to live in a familial community where we throw parties, dine and pray together, look out for one another, enjoy the differences among our friends and attempt to look out for the downtrodden of society stems from the seed of familial beauty in which I grew up as a child. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t always, necessarily like my parents who fought and grounded us and misunderstood our teenage needs. But – it is very true that all of those aspects make a family stronger, not weaker. Covering up the faults reveals the hypocrisy. Never did my family attempt hypocrisy.

The past few months, my roommates have come to feel like family. We eat together, get on each others’ nerves sometimes, have people over, chill out on the deck, are awoken by one another, share struggle and encouragement. This bond serves not only us, but also our Austin-wide, neighborhood web of friends and acquaintances. We all agree that being a family seems to be most similar sense of “relatedness” Jesus talks about as it harkens back to the tribes of Israel. We take part in the small blessing of family together as brothers and sisters in Christ, not for ourselves – but for the mending of a broken world. So much of the world doesn’t understand the family – God’s blessing to us. So it is no surprise that people don’t understand what we do here, and are yet are still drawn to it – to Christ.

Hugging the world, one child at a time. Thanks for the legacy mom and dad.