Article November 25, 1944 Issue

Family Circle

MARGARET GERALDINE GODEFROI

During the years between the world wars, our sins of evasion were manifold and reaped a bitter harvest. Evasion of responsibility in affairs national and international and, many times, in personal and domestic relationships, brought the world to such a condition of unpreparedness for the sudden onslaught of evil that it is only by a series of seeming miracles that those who desire to preserve law and order have not been swept into the abyss.

Few people have the opportunity to deal directly with affairs on the international or even the national stage, but each one of us has some personal or domestic responsibility, some problem, maybe, which must be faced and not shirked, and which, if it is to be healed, must be tackled, even though it seems insoluble, with courage and decision.

Family relationships form a prolific source of trouble. Do we find ourselves assorted in family groups? Then there can be no escape from this arrangement by flight or disruption. Jesus told us to love our neighbors as ourselves. A dictionary gives the meaning and origin of the word "neighbor" as neah, nigh; gebur, a dweller, one who lives near another. Our neighbors, therefore, are not only those living in the house next door, but the members of our family, living in our own home. Some people resent family life, and try to elude it.

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