A Letter from Lindy

Greetings Pilgrims,

This week began more family-intensive than usual. My Hawaii sister arrived on Tuesday for 2 weeks and I leave for Orlando Monday to spend a week with my daughter, son-in-law and granddaughter, as we recognize another year has passed since Lanny’s death. My sister and I have spent the last few evenings talking about our siblings: who shows up to reflect God’s will of presence with and for my mom. Confessionally, my family is a mixed bag of those who show up and those who do not, even though we were born of and raised by the very same parents. DNA and familial environment, it seems. are not the only forces at work that shape our moral arc.

Jesus also has a little something to say about family in this week’s gospel text. Words that may or may not feel harsh to our ears, depending upon our own experience of family. Jesus invites us to see family in new terms. He knows it means blood and origins and where we come from, and….. 
 

and then, he invites us to hear it be more than that. We have a phrase for this bigger vision: chosen family. Which means we recognize the idea of family needs to be bigger. Because the nuclear family is too small, and truth be known, a pretty new invention.
 

Chosen family isn’t really a different orientation, rather has been part of our faith from the beginning. Think about it. We speak of one another as siblings in Christ and as children of God. I wonder though, if for some of us, these words feel difficult to treat as “real.”  For others, I can imagine, these words are life-giving. 

Through it all, I believe we long to speak of the closeness that God hopes is part of relationships, and yet struggle with the boundary Jesus himself breaks. It takes courage to expand our sense of family. To see so many others on this common journey as our closest siblings. Because it then begs the question of what you are called to do.
 

lots to ponder.

Pastor Lindy

(she/her) why pronouns matter