The Places You've Lived that Live in You ~ Part 3

 

This week you’ve named the places and spaces you’ve called home.  You’ve honored people whose lives and light you connected with.  You’ve reflected a bit on the lessons you learned that you carry in the soil of your soul.  Now, I invite you to ponder the family narratives you were taught and caught.  Every family has a gospel…but sometimes it isn’t such great news.  Maybe you come from a family where the story was “Not enough”.  You’d come home with one B on your report card, and your parents would berate you, making you fear you would never get into Harvard with those grades.  Maybe you come from a family where everyone was against you or out to get you.  Maybe you come from a family where you always had to be optimistic.  Every family has propaganda.  Psychologists call this “Your Family of Origin Story.”  You were served these stories alongside bowls of mashed potatoes passed around the table.  You consumed these stories sometimes without realizing what you were digesting. You were served this in parents’ reactions and responses.  You picked this up as part of your beautiful survival technique, as we all want to make sure we don’t get kicked out of our tribe.  While your family probably didn’t sit around a fire telling these stories, the truth is our families still have a narrative that can be subtle and subversive and gets into our souls to inform the stories we tell about ourselves.  There is a great line in scripture, Jeremiah 31:29, “In those days people will no longer say, ‘The parents have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge.’”  In other words, the sins of our parents don’t need to confine or contain us.  As the mystics say, the truth may set us free, but first it may make you miserable!  Did your parents ever say to you, “In this family, we (fill in the blank)” ~ tell the truth; do whatever it takes to get ahead; never ask for help because we help others; are there for one another.  Or maybe it wasn’t as explicit…more implicit.  You asked for help, only to have your parents say, “You are on your own.  Gotta learn sometime to pull yourself up by your own bootstraps.”  Listen to the phrases that still reverberate in the cobwebbed corners of your soul as you rewind and remember the places and people that still rest and reside in you.  Amen.