Questions of the Heart

 Good morning, and welcome to this Thursday Thought.

In my role as a minister, I sometimes am privy to some of what one might call the “inner workings” of families.  I think you know what I mean.  There is the public version that families often portray to the outside world.  Then there is the private version of family dynamics that sometimes leaks out into the public view.  Those two versions are often at odds with one-another.  The private version is often a more raw and contentious version than the façade the public sees.

One of the events that often brings the darker private life of the family to public view is when someone…usually a matriarch or patriarch…passes away or is terminal and close to death.  Relatives who haven’t cared for the deceased, haven’t been concerned for the deceased, haven’t visited the deceased, or shown any inclination to have a relationship with the deceased suddenly come out of the woodwork.  They may want to make decisions regarding any funeral or memorial arrangements.  They show little or no respect for the spouse or closer relatives of the deceased.  They usually want something of value…jewelry, automobiles, money, or other property of the demised relative.  If the deceased was cremated, they want to decide what to do with the remains.  They resurrect old issues and family troubles.  In general, they cause havoc within the family, opening old wounds and creating new ones.

I’ve seen it all too often.  For some reason, the death of a relative seems to bring out the worst in some of the other family members.  There is tension, conflict, and there are even sometimes legal battles that go on within families when someone passes.  As if the emotional toll, making the arrangements for burial, taking care of the deceased’s possessions, and learning to live life without that person aren’t enough, now the family is saddled with additional trauma, generated and perpetuated by a few who probably shouldn’t even be in the picture.

I’ve often wondered why this is.  Why is it that families, at a time when the best behavior of everyone should be the rule of the day, why is it that sometimes the worst comes out instead?  Greed, jealousy, a struggle for power, opening old wounds…these seem to be part of an all-too-often occurrence in the lives of too many family units.

I’m not a Psychologist.  I am not an expert on human behavior.  I don’t know the answers.  I don’t know how to counsel grieving families who are going through this additional unnecessary trauma.  What I do know is that these kinds of behaviors are some of the most sinister and divisive...the completion of the tearing apart of the basic unit of society…the family.

I said “the completion of the tearing apart of the family.”  That was intentional on my part because those families have been in trouble for quite some time before the passing of the loved one.  They may well have managed to hide the quarrels, the jealousy, and the greed from public view, but when something traumatic happens, those things come out into the open in an all-out display of the reality of the brokenness of the family…and by extension the brokenness of humanity.  Because let’s face it.  Quarreling, greed, jealousy, anger, and lust for power are the natural and normal functions of human life.  It takes someone really abnormal to put those attributes away and instead display love, kindness, humility, and a servant heart.

The great apostle Paul had it right when he wrote to the Corinthian church about love.  The so-called “love chapter”…chapter 13 in I Corinthians…is what many believe to be a pinnacle of what it means to love.  Here is just a portion of that chapter.

Love is patient, love is kind.  It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.  It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.  Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.  It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.  Love never fails.

This same Paul also, when writing to the Galatian Christians, speaks of the “acts of the flesh,”…that is, the natural and normal functions of human life…as being, among other things, hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy.

What a contrast the acts of love are against the normal and natural human acts of jealousy, selfishness, and the like.  Are you the “normal and natural?”  Or are you someone who instead displays the acts of love toward others?  How do you behave in tense and traumatic family situations?  How many grudges are you holding right now?  What lurks in your heart?

Jesus said that the words one speaks comes from the heart.  May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord.

Blessings.