The Sacred Life in Family

                               The Smith Family (A Number of Years Ago) On Raspberry Island, Lake Superior


​How can anyone consider a sacred life without thinking about family? Some few of us become monks or nuns, perhaps even cloistered. Still others might enter a ministry or a priesthood in which vows, particularly including celibacy. But, for most of us, and that includes all those who deeply ponder building the sacred into their family life, work-a-day world, etc. 

It has been said that the "most" sacred life is the life of consecrated devotion of the Holy One: minus the commitment to marriage-partnership and family. While I honor and respect those persons who follow this rugged path, family life is no less rugged: indeed, it is highly likely that the sacred gift of family supercedes the challenges and commitment of the so-called "consecrated life"... It is possible that we can "blame" this seeming split between the sacred and the secular upon the ancient Greek philosophers who "divined" a division between "body" and "soul"... between the "pure" and the "profane": pleasure, particularly sexual pleasure, as "unfortunate" and opposed to "God-like" celibacy...

​Pardon me if I think this philosphical divide as profoundly unnecessary and obviously contrary to the Holy Scripture of Nature: can you not see the verdant greening all around? Life is crazily abundant: and not just because sex is fun! The real problem is the "thinking" that separates everything into "this or that", "good or bad", "sacred versus profane", "God from Human", and of course the devious "if you indulge in that which gives you pleasure, you'll pay for it in the end"... and so we have an entire Planet getting raped, an epidemic of violence against women and children, and justifications up the wah-zoo for sexism, racism, nationalism, injustice, oppression, and exploitation... How is a family, any family, supposed to make sense of all of this?

Trying to make sense of the absurd is itself absurd!

It is precisely here, in the rejection of the absurd, that families have a chance to chart a different course. Abstract speculation is fine for the philosopher, but a parent feeding an infant at two-thirty in the morning has a different reality (absent from agenda)... Families are always all about relationships: most often, the "most" broken or deviant gets most of the energy in any relationship. Those who have been used and abused always find ways to return the favor anywhere down the line. This is not abstract speculation: it is also true for monastic communities! The sacred in the family is always (all the time) exactly in the everyday... Intention is where we begin: a cultivated gratitude is always the path into the sacred... Observing nature and the natural grants depth and nuance and generosity: without which there is neither family nor civilization...

​Observation, nuance, and generosity are feminine attributes: so, in a way, the building of a sacred life is a Paleolithic culture: modern families are in desparate need of oral traditions (I could say oral sex just to tease you!)... it is in the mutuality of family-engaged conversation that a shared wisdom can be found... it's not for nothing that everyone is attracted to the campfire, to stories under the moon, and to the intimacy of the dark... The sacred in the family is not genuinely-likely found in church, temple, or mosque: rather, it is most likely found in the intimacy of the discovery of self in a shared family wisdom... This shared wisdom obviously implies an equality between parent-partners as well as an everyday operational equality of parent-partners and children... If the child intuites the truth of equality with parent, a shared reverence is born...

​Finally, the sacred life in family practices weaving... weaving the cosmos into dishwashing or sweeping the floor is practical parenting: which is a deep bow to the wonder inherent in every moment: a shared task, like a walk to the store, parent and child, is just about as holy as it will ever get! Oh, you might sometime also volunteer some hours in a Soup Kitchen, but it is in the everyday weave of conversation in which the sacred becomes obviously present... One could call this practiced weaving a necessary aspect of the deep-ecology required from all of us as we continue stepping into our future... There is no more important family practice than that of weaving gratitude into your daily life: practice sacred circle before meals in which everyone says something or other she / he is most grateful for... that and, every night, whisper into your child's ear that you love her / him / them... this moment is also a good time to teach your child how to say "sorry" and forgiveness... when you as parent say that you are sorry for something or other, you are gifting a growing wisdom to your child...

​Anyway, this is our practice...  and, as always, your comments and insights are most welcome!