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 62^nd 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.