Family Values?

Tolstoy again.

Last week, while reflecting upon Count Leo Tolstoy's belief that humanity consists of two different sorts of people, those who care for everybody and those who only care for themselves, I left a couple questions unanswered.  One of them -- about where people who care only for some people fit into Tolstoy's model -- I will address today with a couple thoughts about what politicians call family values. 

Many of us humans expend so much of our effort, worry, and emotion on family, we don't recognize that we behave as described in a once mighty popular song: "There ain't no room for the hopeless sinner who would hurt all mankind just to save his own."

We may buy and rent housing for big profit while ignoring requests for repairs; under-pay employees; invest in stocks with no concern for the harm our chosen companies do; cheat on our taxes; or all of these while feeling righteous on account of being good providers.

I may someday title a book To Hell with Family Values. In spite of the reality that family means pretty much everything to me, I am well aware that the Bible commands me not to live like that. From God telling Abraham to sacrifice his only son to Christ warning his followers, “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters; yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.”

Hate being one of those tricky words like love, I looked it up in a King James Version dictionary. It claims that in Scripture the word expresses less aversion than do terms such as abhor or detest, and that hate generally signifies to love less or to love not at all. Please keep that definition in mind while reading about an extreme example of abandoning those we love:

I was on a trip promoting a book when two women of kind and friendly demeanor came into a bookstore in Newberg, Oregon.

The one I call Curly wore a sweatshirt from nearby George Fox University. We talked for a while about different varieties of modern Quakers then drifted to speculations about benefits and hazards of churches in general. From there, the conversation led to this story from the woman I call Gentle.

As Gentle began her story, Curly wandered off. Later I would notice her on a couch close by, reading a book or pretending to while she kept watch over her friend.

Gentle was telling me about a few years back when she began to fear something evil had entered her. “It wasn’t demonic,” she assured me. Over some months, through prayer and meditation, she came to believe that evil itself had invaded the world and entered people, and God had allowed this to happen, which led her to a certainty that we were now living in our world’s final days.

Powered by these revelations, she prayed with intensity and perseverance. And God responded by urging her to give herself entirely to him. She assured him she was all his. But more and more she became uneasy with that assurance and at last she realized she didn’t by any means belong entirely to God. Most of her thoughts, concerns, and energies went to her family.

She was the mom of three wonderful kids and the wife of a loving husband. In horror, she returned to intense and persistent prayer, insisting that God couldn’t possibly mean she should leave her family, could he?

Rather than reply with words or signs, God used prolonged silence. For weeks she waited, listened, and prayed that once she declared herself ready to forsake her family, God would release her from the need to do so, like he did with Abraham.

But he didn’t release her. So, she gathered her husband and kids, all of whom she treasured -- the kids were age 9, 12, and 15 -- and told them she needed to leave. At first, they didn’t believe her. Then they cried.

Over the three years following that awful evening, she attended several churches and felt compelled to tell her story, since God wants his people to share their burdens with one another.

At two churches she was informally but firmly shunned. The third church she was asked to leave. Though she didn’t explain, I imagine her expulsion resulted from the fear that her story could lead to an epidemic of broken marriages.

I find lots to think about in that story. I certainly won't call Gentle either courageously faithful or crazy. I don't even know with whom to most sympathize, Gentle, her husband or her kids, the people of those churches, or Curly, whom I consider the story’s hero because her motive was simply love.

When I remember that day and picture Curly, she looks like Alison Krauss singing a wonderful Stephen Foster song, except Ms. Krauss' hair isn't as curly. The love Ms. Krauss expresses for a child is surely akin to the love Curly expressed for her friend.

And, backtracking to our feeling righteous if we swindle others for family reasons, here are Curtis Mayfield and the Impressions.

Please share this with somebody. And should you feel generous, remember that paid subscriptions help Perelandra College.