This quote, appearing in my inbox, interrupted my morning.
“The children are always ours, every single one of them, all over the globe;
And I am beginning to suspect that whoever is incapable of recognizing this
may be incapable of morality.” – James Baldwin, Notes on the House of Bondage
I agree.
Thank you Sojourners (and James Baldwin) for the reminder.
Reading the quote which interrupted my morning reminded me of a lecture I heard many years ago which fundamentally changed the way I thought and my understanding of family and community. The lecture was on the changing definition of family in our society. The speakers premise was that up until the late 1940’s when we spoke of family we meant parents, siblings, grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. The reason being was that for many, all these family members lived in close proximity to each other. It wasn’t until the late 1940’s and the early 1950’s with the impact of the GI Bill and the interstate highway system and more access to both cars and air travel that families began to live in different parts of the country. It was then that family began to be defined as parents and siblings. The Leave it to Beaver family.
Since that lecture many years ago, our understanding of and definition of family has changed even more. Single parent families. Blended families. Families with same sex parents.
The bottom line for the presenter and the point of the lecture was that the traditional family of two parents and 2.4 children was unsustainable. A claim he backed up with statistics on mental health, and the number of children and youth in crisis. Children growing up needed the presence and the listening ear and the encouragement not only of parents, but of the additional circles around their lives. The community.
As I said, that lecture reoriented my life.
I began to realize the truth of James Baldwin’s wisdom.
All children are our children.
Those of us who participate in a Christian community (I am sure this is true of other faith communities as well, but my ignorance limits me here.) are reminded of this each time we baptize a child. With each baptism, we promise to be the community which cares for all those who grow up in our midst.
What I found myself thinking about today,
while fundamentally important,
That act of baptism is only a microcosm of the much larger truth James Baldwin reminds us of.
Leave a Reply