Steve West: Loving one another through story

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Today is Tuesday, May 23. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHARD, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher.

Sometimes the best part of getting together with family isn’t about what’s on the menu. More often it’s about the memories and old stories that just seem to flow from that familiar kitchen table. Here’s WORLD’s Steve West.

STEVE WEST, COMMENTATOR: History—just getting facts straight about past events—is a challenging but rewarding enterprise. Just consider the stories told at family gatherings.

When my now-departed 92-year old aunt used to tell of her early years, her stories were indisputable—not necessarily because they were true but because she was the only living witness. And because she was the age at which she could not be set straight. Her memories had calcified.

Even when memories are shared, perspectives differ. At three or so, I remember being pushed from my tricycle by my older sister, though she says differently. No one else remembers, so this little bit of family history will have to wait for resolution. Besides, I forgive her.

Yet there are great swaths of family history that are communal, shared by all, and the memories we share are rich.

For my immediate family, the memories might be of family vacations, often in Arizona, or elsewhere in the West. And so the expansive sky and dry air of the deserts, grasslands, and prairies of the West have become a part of who they are, of who our family is. Cacti prickle through our photo albums and rock and sky crowd out the "family" in family photos.

Communal history may be other things as well: back-seat Broadway sing-a-longs on car trips, favorite television shows, side-by-side singing in church, a parade of animals, family jokes, holiday traditions, mealtimes—even, sadly, shared grief.

A family is not simply a collection of individuals. It is our smallest society—a little church, a hospital for the hurting, a school to disciple us all, even a mission to the lost and lonely. Even Jesus had an earthly family, submitting to his parents when as a young boy he wanted to stay behind at the temple, entrusting his mother to the apostle John as he hung on the Cross.

Sadly, not all families work well. Some are barely strung together—under the same roof, sharing the same last name, but with individuals moving in their own orbits. Even in the good ones, it’s work to continue to know each other, to share our lives, to say no to self, to swim against the tide of personal autonomy that permeates our world. To have a conversation not distracted by the presence of a screen. To listen well. To not tear down but build up, speaking blessing and life. To keep telling the stories that we share. To forgive. To love one another well.

But it's worth it. There come those moments when loving each other isn't work, when it just is, like breathing the crisp spring morning air of the desert, and you think, "It doesn’t get much better than this. Heaven must be a bit like this." That’s right before someone says "He or she touched me!" And the fight of faith is on again. But that’s just family.

I’m Steve West.

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