Time for an update. Nearly a month since the last blog post.
Above is a photo taken during our most recent family gathering down in Devon. A photo of my brothers, my sister and myself. Kinfolk - 4 kids who grew up.
This photo was taken roughly 7 months on from that fateful day on March 28th 2019 when Simon entered the hospital with a brain bleed. A victorious photo of a positive outcome.
My brother is now living back at home. He has lost a few months of his life from his memory, the days leading up to the brain bleed and the months that followed when he was in hospital. Sadly ( or maybe not so sadly ) those memories may never return but he is alive and well and recovering.
Family is a funny thing, isn't it? We are tied together by our parents, sharing the same genes, our lives entwined from the beginning. They say that you can choose your friends but you can't choose your physical family. Someone else does that for you.
I look at the photo above and can see some similar features, I am aware of some similar personality traits. But when I look at this photo, what I really see is how different and unique we are, there are no copies.
So God created man in His own image, in the image and likeness of God He created him;
male and female He created them. Genesis 1:27
Each of us made in the image of God. Each a new expression of humanity. You would think that with so many millions of people living on planet earth, that some of us would be copies of each other. That you would be constantly bumping into people who are very similar to people you have met before. But that doesn't happen.
I can see familiar cultural and class traits. I can hear similarities in accents and mannerisms. But I have yet to meet anyone, even a son or a daughter, who is exactly like their parents. I look at my nephews and niece and I can see hints of myself in all of them. I can see larger portions of their parents in them and even parts of their grandparents. But ultimately they are all very unique.
I look at my family and I see how our life stories are so very different. We started in the same place but from the point where we started making our own decisions we began to separate. Our friends were different. Our taste in clothing was different. Our favourite colour and favourite meal differ. It is a good thing. It is how we were meant to be. Individual, alive and wonderfully our own personality.
I look at the photo above and I can see how our choices have taken us on very different paths. The gift of independence, free will and the ability to make our own decisions taking us along new roads. We are now all living our own lives, divided into our separate households - but this past 7 months has taught us that we will forever be part of this one physical family. We have been forced to spend a lot of time together and to be honest at times it has been very uncomfortable. We embarrass each other, we annoy each other but we also we strive to enjoy each other. It takes work to make a family pull together. An intentional investment in energy. We have chosen to keep going when we wanted to quit. We have chosen to be hopeful when we felt overwhelmed. We are vulnerable, flawed and becoming more authentic.
I was reflecting on what makes us family this week. Partly because I was grieving for someone I never met. Yes, it was an unexpected moment of grief when I heard that ( Kevin/Toby McKeehan's ) Toby Mac's son died in Nashville last week. I felt sad that the kid I never met but had grown up listening to was gone. There was a season in my life, when I would play the same CD over and over again in the car. The pumped up music of Toby Mac kept me awake on lengthy road trips. I remember hearing True dog's cute little voice on his dads' recordings. Truett Foster McKeehan - True Dog. He was a friend I never met. His father was like an older brother to me. So when Toby Mac and his wife grieve, I grieve too.
This week I was watching men and women who I consider family celebrating the Dove Awards in Nashville, a ceremony to honour those who have influenced and led us with their musical talents over the past year. I wasn't there, I am not part of the Christian music industry, but I have benefitted from their hard labours. Watching the awards was like watching my family celebrate another year. I saw men and women in the gathering who have raised me with their lyrics. Artists like Amy Grant. Steven Curtis Chapman. Michael English. Kirk Franklin. Cece Winnans.
There was such a different atmosphere to the event in comparison to other awards ceremonies such as 'The Grammys' or 'The Oscars.' On the surface it may have looked similar. Yes, everyone was dressed up, looking their finest, putting their best foot forward. But in this gathering there was humility. There was family. A sense of serving each other and honouring each other. There were moments of glory where eyes were genuinely lifted to our Father. Where anthems that marked our year were recognised. As I watched I realised yet again what a massive overflow of worship there has been across the earth in the past year. We are more united in what we are singing than we give ourselves credit for.
I was delighted to see Brian Houston, another Father figure to me, on the stage. ( I will be honest, the main reason I love Brian Houston is because we share the same birthday. When I am feeling miserable on my birthday in water logged, wet, cold, grey wintery England ... I always feel comforted that somewhere in the sunny summer of the Southern Hemisphere the Houstons are celebrating the 17th of February ! )
I was happy for my church family - Hillsong to be honoured. ( I still pinch myself every time the children I look after come home from their Catholic school with Hillsong worship music scores to practise on the guitar. It makes me smile. The Catholic kids are singing our tunes. A shared liturgy from the ancients rewritten for a new generation. The message hasn't changed, just the method of delivery. We have been basing our lives on the same Nicene creed for hundreds of years.)
But enough of the establishment, what about those who have only recently joined the party? On Friday I realised that Kanye West and Kim were now family. A mouthy rapper and his exotic wife. While watching a recent clip of Kanye there was no denying the joy. I recognised my Father in Kanyes' newly uncovered smile. I saw the humility had kicked in. I recognised the peace that wrapped itself around him. Despite our very different backgrounds, there is no denying that we will belong together for eternity.
And what about Russell Brand! Who would have ever thought that I would consider him family but he is. What links us all together? Our admission that we are flawed and we love and need God. We can't do it on our own. Nothing more complicated than taking off the masks and trying to live in humility. Vulnerable, flawed and authentic.
So Kinfolk - Natural and Spiritual. Today I celebrate all of us.
I celebrate the ones who I never got to choose, my family of birth. My parents and my 2 brothers and my sister. My Aunts and Uncle, my step-Mum and my in-laws. My nephews and niece and cousins.
And I celebrate the other ones who I also didn't get to choose but who are also equally family. My adopted family. I chose Jesus and with him came a huge family of diverse people. Humans that are very different from me. The flawed and the broken. Those that embarrass me. Those that I am irritated by. But despite this, they are the beautiful crazy diverse messy spiritual family that I also belong to.
If anyone says, I love God, and detests his brother ( in Christ ) he is a liar, for he who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, Whom he has not seen. 1 John 4:20