Article December 5, 2016 Issue

Family and holidays

Blythe Evans

The holiday season is upon us—a time to get together with family … or so they say. But what if it feels like we don’t have any family? Or we have “too much” family, causing stress or inharmony? Or we don’t get along with them? What then?

An approach I’ve found helpful is to think more deeply about the concept of family as not limited to the common definition of a group of mortals related by blood or marriage, but as the wonderfully harmonious unity of our divine Father-Mother God and all of us—His, Her, dearly beloved spiritual children. Think of it: We all have one loving Parent who is caring for us, providing for us, and guiding us. And because we all have one divine Parent, we are all brothers and sisters in the one loving, harmonious, and universal family of man. Mary Baker Eddy writes in the Christian Science textbook, “Man is the family name for all ideas,—the sons and daughters of God” (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 515).

Christ Jesus certainly had an expansive, inclusive, spiritual sense of family that started with God and extended to man. Jesus often referred to God as his Father, and ours. For instance, the Lord’s Prayer he gave us starts with “Our Father” (Matthew 6:9). Another time, Jesus said: “Who is my mother? and who are my brethren? And he stretched forth his hand toward his disciples, and said, Behold my mother and my brethren! For whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother” (Matthew 12:48–50).

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