The good fight for effective living commonly includes the family factor. This is another factor in our lives that carries spiritual mystery. Issues related to it are compounded in various ways. Some theories even include the absence of family for large influence. Biographies have included studies in some occupations, such as church ministry (conservative/liberal), or writers (secular/religious), or sports (usually relating to father/mother/athletes) – and others, especially the often tragic stories related to celebrity families. The younger generation follows the lead of the family (sometimes individualized to father or mother), either for benefit or loss. The loss is usually related to the adjustments made in the younger generation because the father, sometimes mother, was controlling, or abusive, or absent in the formative years of life. My father was seen and remembered by me from one occasion only minutes long, in my life at five years of age, but the negatives of his life have had large influence on me – for good. I have been so offended by his cavalier approach to his family, in his first family, and then in his second to my mother, until sinking to murky death from tuberculosis before my sixth birthday. I sometimes wonder if he, and his decayed relationship with my mother, who loved him, may have influenced me more than my mother’s influence either in her person or in her relationship to my step-father, who entered when I was nine years of age, and was married to my mother for fifty years until his death. Mother’s decision against his proposal to adopt her three children perhaps caused him to shy from parental duty, and my own early feeling that I would get on in life on my own. All this formed me. However, my mother would sometimes function as father for me.
The majority of persons in the world place high value on their families, and attachments especially to parents and siblings, but also to others in the circle of relatives. Nevertheless, many persons characterize their families in negative terms, and that trend seems to be increasing. Negative terms, like dysfunctional, or depressed incorporate a context, as does a new one from my reading, endlessly irritating. There are many of these words unattractive to us in these Pages. Almost any term used may apply on this or that day or season, but the society will find it difficult to fare well if the family fails to be a necessary and warming factor – as a base for community and personal caring. At this writing there is intense debate on the monumental cost for the care of citizens, young and old, as costs approach nearly half of the national production. A century ago, programs simply did not exist except for general hospitals in some communities and an old people’s home in many counties. The family was, in history, responsible for its members. The social advances that relate individualism to the non-family care of individuals has made innumerable warehouses of old and ailing persons – alone, perhaps fairly well cared for, but lacking the love and human relationship that belongs to loving families. Society seems bent on finding some ways to circumvent family for life needs and care. Government becomes the caretaker in programs and funding. That will always omit something it can’t provide, and function at a cost that will be difficult, perhaps impossible, to bear. A major meaning for family is to have a loving group caring for its members.
Our education, both formal and informal, is not preparing us for life in an intense change from interpersonal life to mechanistic means for life conduct and culture. Even done well, the independent models come out a bit cold and excessively costly. Reflective thought with life conclusions that leave out the mysteries of family intimacy will create a somewhat different situation than social and personal history has known. We can, and ought to provide, care for those who need it. Perhaps family has been minimized. (James 1:27) The value of one solution need not mean decline in another. Building lives, of families that relate to life legacy needs to be nourished by the best learning, understanding, and activity leading to applied wisdom needed in a conflicted society. God provides first for that planning he most approves. Family is first in line for the social context. Family failure, as Scripture teaches and illustrates, is a major reason for opting out of some life benefits given to committed families. Secular laws and conducts seem to have lost some of the understanding of the deeper and practical meaning of family. A few gestures, like time off for the early months for parents of a new baby, or some other kind gesture will not be enough. *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020