Beating Around...Family Values

Red Yellow Black and White, All Are Precious

Hello everyone! I hope that if you take the time to read this page of tiny thoughts from my tiny mind that you missed me…because I missed you. So without wasting time…let’s begin.

Bible verse: “He answered, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’  “You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.  But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” Luke 10: 27-29

Who is my neighbor? WHAT A GREAT QUESTION!

notice the missing finger

Meet Laney the major (only because I got her first). You had your crazily messed up stuffed animal that you mangled up as a childhood toy and I had Laney my favorite baby doll (and better than your childhood toy no doubt). Although my 25 year old self is a little freaked out by her now, 4 year old Mallory thought there no better, more beautiful doll in the world. Best friends we were (Yoda language), until one day, through the intense amount of time spent together, she lost a finger and I pitched a fit. Believe it or not, my wailings made it all the way to the Easter Bunny who heeded my plea and delivered a brand new Laney (the minor) to me on Easter morning.

Twin Laneys?

 Sweet! Now I can take them both everywhere…. AND I DID!

But what would I have done if my mom has asked me to let go of one of the dolls? I would have thrown a fit because both of the dolls were MINE. Laney the minor was pretty with all 10 fingers, but Laney the major was a deeply filled treasure chest of memories. Yes, I loved each doll in a different way, but the bottom line is that I loved them because they were both MINE. I was their mom and they were my twin daughters, sisters, and yes… NEIGHBORS.

We actually ARE our brother's keeper

So seriously, who is our neighbor? What do we have in common with the unfamiliar faces and unfamiliar races around us? Our common ground is that we all of have the same Dad. We have all been created by the amazing creator of the universe. We are his sons and daughters, siblings and yes… NEIGHBORS.

No matter what we look like, where we have been, how we act, what we do or how we treat people… God looks at us and says “Mine. That one struggles with addiction but he is MINE. That one can’t let go of her pride but she is MY daughter. Those are self righteous, by they are MY self righteous children. He is homeless, a criminal, a prostitute, just plain annoying and selfish, hurt, broken, joyful, rich, or poor. All are different. All have different struggles. THEY ARE ALL MINE! Therefore, THEY ARE ALL EACH OTHERS!”

God's children

Created by Your Heavenly Father

Your sisters

 This means that we are quite literally family and that family code applies here (you know the “I can talk about my mama but you can’t talk about my mama “ attitude) The idea is that we have each other’s back no matter what.

We have all heard this verse preached at church and written on coffee mugs. I would even guess that we cradled Catholics know this verse by heart (that and the ole John 3:16). So if that is true, then why don’t we live it? Why is it not visible to the world that we genuinely love (not necessarily like) EVERY one of our neighbors to the point that it is evident in our actions? I would propose that it is because we do not in fact love our neighbor as we love ourselves. The verse is often skimmed over, the term love is diluted and many of us do not in fact love ourselves which leaves little room for us to love others.

SOOO how do we regain its meaning?

What if we exchanged the word “love” for the word “focus” so now it reads,

 “ FOCUS on your neighbor as you would FOCUS on yourself.”

Does that not shoot through our hearts a new challenge? Even if we struggle to love ourselves we still focus on our wants, our needs, our conveniences and much more than the needs and wants of others. Christ is calling us to take all the energy that we use to focus on ourselves and turn it to focus on His children, our siblings and our neighbors. That kind of attention should only then be turned into action.

If we so choose to do this in the way to which our savior calls us, we will be inconvenienced. We will have to face the fact that there is stuff going on in the world to which we as Americans can easily turn a blind eye. We will have to admit that there is more selfishness and greed in our hearts than we want to recognize. BUT… in the midst of that there is a really cool affect of putting this radical teaching into practice. See when we focus less on ourselves, the obscure neighbor that we are supposed to “love” gains a face, an identity and a story and our heavenly family begins to expand our horizon grows. Our tiny little kingdoms that we create begin to grow and look more like the kingdom that God created…the one that we are supposed to be working for.