"We Are Family"

They gather once a week.  Each family bringing their own personalities to the table.  As food is passed, conversation ebbs and flows, sometimes voices rising in conflict but nearly always with respect. There is an unspoken rule to be present at these gatherings and three members of the family are their in memory ~ two matriarchs and a son who lost his life on the job.  This is family.  Family is always important, and in this case the family business, law enforcement, also connects them.

I love this family.  I love how it works together as a unit, but keeps it's individuality.  Love how it operates well even in their imperfections, because of a firm foundation in faith and love. Through love expressed comes forgiveness, respect, and diversity.  Unity in diversity.

By now you may have figured out that this family I am describing is found on Friday night TV.  Blue Bloods in a show about cops, but it is much more.  The people in this show are portrayed pretty real, as far as how complex family can be.  How humane...how difficult.  It is a family drama.  And isn't that what life is about?  Relationships and of course within that, drama.

There is a song our whole family sings at wedding celebrations.  "We Are Family" unites us as we celebrate welcoming one more into the clan.  We don't all live our lives in parallel forward movements, nor do we all agree on such topics as faith or politics, but hopefully we see each other through a lens of love, the way God commands we do.  The way He views us through the Lens (Jesus) of love.  

And isn't that how we all need to see each other?  Not one of us is exempt.  We are required to see others through this Lens, this One that God placed in us as we reached out to Him,
believing...receiving.  

We gather at a table together in our homes, in restaurants, in schools, offices, and places of worship.  We gather, we give thanks, we pass bread, we lift glasses of pure liquid to our lips, and we unite over food and fellowship.  We unite as a family, as a community, a country, our world. Unity in diversity.  

I am not always comfortable with the intensity of the show Blue Bloods, but when the family gathers as they always do, a smile graces my face.  Family.  My heart aches for our family, but it also fills with warmth as I think about their own gatherings around their own tables.  We don't have the privilege of having weekly dinners.  Yearly dinners are all we can hope for, but in our hearts we still sing the song ....."We are family....." and we give thanks for that.

God has given us the way...the truth.....whether with our family or our community...to view each other with love.  It is through His beautiful Lens, Jesus.  Through that lens we are all family.