FAMILY:
SPEAKING
OF WALLS
INTRODUCTION
The title of my homily for this Holy Family Sunday is,
‘Family: Speaking of Walls.”
We need walls and we
need open spaces.
Anybody who grew up
in a family business like a restaurant knows that the family business needs a
sign for their front door - with a message on each side. One side: “Open” and
the other side, “Closed” - and they need to know when to use both.
There is a scripture
text: “It’s not good to be alone.”
But sometimes - it’s
good to be alone - to take a walk - to breathe - to go figure - and then
come home again.
America’s poet, Robert Frost, who can be cold, in his poem Mending Walls, gives a good summary of the pro’s and cons of walls.
One man wants to repair the stone wall that separates his property from
another man. Both meet every Spring to check out their wall.
The second man wonders why they need a wall in the first place. If they
had cows, he could see a good reason, but they have trees. The first man always
says “Good fences make good neighbors.”
The other man asks, “Why do they make good neighbors?’
Robert Frost reflects, “Before
I’d build a wall - I’d ask what I’m walling in and walling out.” Everyone is
both those men. We have within us the need for walls and the need to break down
walls. And everyone should ask themselves, “Before I’d build a wall - I’d ask
to know what I’m walling in and walling out.”
I think Holy Family Sunday and the beginning and ending of a year, we
should look at our family and look at our walls.
AH SWEET HOME
After a long day, we often long for the four walls of the front seat of
our car or back seat in a bus as we head for home.
Ah sweet home….
To come through the garage door or the front door and close it and go
into our house and make the sound, “Phew.”
To hear the question: “How was your day?”
How was your day? How was your week? How was your Christmas this year?
How was 2018? How do you want 2019 to
be? How’s your life going?
Whom do you talk to? Whom do you feel at home with? Who listens to you?
Whom do you listen to? Who opens up to
you? Who closes you down? Who gives you
space? Who gives you quiet? Who gives
you great conversations? Who turns off
the TV and listens to thee? Who turns
the TV on so you can watch favorite
programs with?
Answers to these questions are often in the safe - called our skull -
or our brain.
Hopefully our sweet home is a place where we can be ourselves - our
best self - but sometimes we are our
worst self and we want walls to hide behind.
Hopefully our home is a home of love for one another and not a home
where we condemn each other - as we heard about in today’s second reading
from 1 John.
TWO CHINESE PROVERBS
“Nobody’s family can hang out the sign, ‘Nothing the
matter here.’”
“Better be kind at home than burn incense in a far
place.”
That far place could be church.
We all know that church goers can be crummy family members - but
hopefully church - makes us all better family members.
THREE QUOTES FROM THREE NOVELISTS
Jane Austen [1775-1817], in Emma [1815] chapter 18: “Nobody who has not been in the interior of a
family can say what the difficulties of any individual of that family may be.”
Charles Dickens
[1812-1870], in David Copperfield,
chapter 28 writes, “Accidents will occur
in the best-regulated families.”
Leo Tolstoi [1828-1910] in Anna
Karenia [1875-1877] writes, “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy
family is unhappy in its own way.”
LOOKING AND LISTENING AND READING EACH OTHER
Looking back at my
parents - I was blessed - because they were wonderful.
My dad took us to
the park each Sunday to give my mom a break.
But looking back my
dad was a big introvert. When I look at
old black and white family pictures I find myself wondering and wishing I knew
what was behind my dad’s skull walls. He just happened to be an introvert.
Life.
I find myself
talking a lot with my last sister - who knew a lot more about my dad than I
did.
She gave my sister
Peggy’s Eulogy 5 years ago and I sat there hearing the wonderful story that I
never knew: my dad would take my sister Peggy by bus from 62nd
Street to 95 Street in Brooklyn - get her an ice cream - and then they would walk back together. I
didn’t know that. She was able to get on the other side of that wall - of my
dad- that I really never got through.
I had gone away to
the seminary and missed out on a lot of family stuff. But it’s a joy now to
find out stuff I missed.
How about you? What is your family like? What are you like?
What do you like?
Walls have
doors. People have all kinds of
phones. What walls do you need to get
through - especially if people are still alive?
Are there any walls
that need to be breeched? I love a verse in a
a poem by Edwin
Markham:
“He drew a circle
that shut me out.
Heretic, rebel a
thing to flout
But love, and I had
the will to win.
We drew a circle and
took him in.”
I love the sign at the
Taize Monastery in France.
“All you who enter
here
Be reconciled
The Father with his
son
The husband with his
wife
The believer with
the unbeliever.
The Christian with
his separated brother.”
That should be on the wall of every home and every human
being.
CONCLUSION
The title of my homily was, “Family: Speaking of Walls.”
In today’s gospel
Jesus was separated, lost, from Mary and Joseph and then they started looking
for him and when they found him, they told him, “Where have you been. We missed
you.”
Is there anyone in
your family that is missing from your life?
And most people will
say yes. In 2019, if something can be done about opening that door in that
wall, knock.
And I always add,
“It could make things worse.”
Always remember e.e.
cummings words, “Be of love a little more careful than anything.
