Individuality

I am unable to let go of last year’s emphasis on the one and the many.  There is an individual plan for every person that includes God in earthly life, and that plan carries over into the social life of the person.  I belong to the one individual (personal) with God, and I belong to the many (social) with God.  I am guided by the context of intimacy with God that is not to be interpreted as a part of society, although it has much to do with my conduct and attitudes in society.  Persons may lose themselves in the intimate role – aloneness with God.  They may seek a life context in the earthly sojourn to nourish the effort of that devotion. Others feel that God is served if they are socially acceptable, doing what the law requires, even serving the needs of other persons, and following a moral code – perhaps that of the intimate but withdrawn Christian. The decency of that context may leave out only the relationship of the intimate life with God.  But, the omission is vital and loses life meaning in that the practice is not related to God who created it all in any context that, to have effective value, must include him.  Life may become retreat so lost.  Wandering even in the most pleasant surroundings does not gain destination.  The social idealist, holding no faith context, will not find enough to be satisfied nor gain enough to answer life’s toughest questions.  I find so many contradictions and incomplete evidence in social science that I sometimes feel I may be misled.  For example: for many years the statistics on marriage and divorce were rather straightforward – so many marriages and so many divorces in a nation of so many citizens of marriageable age.  This was changed to the number of divorces from the number of total marriages (no matter how long the marriages) in a year.  My sisters (twins) were both married five times that I know about.  They were noted during some of those years as married and divorced in the same year.  Most years they were reported as married, but on eight of the years (since their last marriages held until their deaths) they were reported as divorcies, some years counted twice in an appearance in both categories.  I was married once.  The statistics were skewed.

My wife and I had four children.  My sisters in ten marriages had three daughters in all.  The three daughters had to work through much of their lives without the balances of a normal home.  One of them lived with my family as daughter for nearly two years.  There is much more here, some of which is quite bizarre – but we move on.  For my sisters’ daughters, one is close to me and my interests (the one who lived with us), one died and I was contacted by her sister so to participate in the funeral of a somewhat tragic figure, and the third (who contacted me for her sister) is little known to me although highly respectful in any contact and I love her.  What meaning do the statistics have for my sisters’ experiences, and society?  (I have many more stories like those of my sisters.  For some of these persons there was a private spiritual life, brought over, sometimes late, from social lives, or carried over from society into their spiritual lives.)

Growing into adult life my sisters felt that mother favored me.  In one sense she did, in that she approved of my lifestyle and didn’t approve theirs.  I kept in weekly contact with her.  They did not.  I did not need her financial assistance.  One of them did.  The story can be extended.  She loved the three of us equally.  When she came to the end of her years I knew she needed the attention of her children.  I took it on with the yeoman service from my family circle, who gave her magnificent care.  I knew my time commitments and my wife’s health would not permit the daily attention my mother needed, but my family (elder son and wife) took it on and I managed the financial issues.  This pattern I ordered, without counsel, for a primary reason that my mother would have been totally uncomfortable in the homes of her daughters, in the changing of personnel and the tensions that led to break up and divorces.  I also wanted to avoid any tension, or feeling of neglect on the part of my sisters.  It turned out well to protect our mother, to maintain a love relationship within our family, and to give balance to the one and many contexts of a number of lives. What do the statistics have to say about this and similar situations related to marriage, the family and the generations?  Scripture offers to us the way life should be lived in personal relationship to God and others in society offering love, protection and fellowship in faith context.  With faith, family is God’s inclusive context.