Join The Family

Hello there,

Year on year my life seems to pass more quickly... well of course it does, I suppose, because each year is representing a percentage of your actual age... so if you are fifty, then each year passing represents a mere fiftieth of your life ... whereas when you were five each year was a whole fifth!! So if you are even older than that.... my goodness, ... imagine how fast the years go by when you are fast approaching ninety?!

The reason I'm dwelling on the passing of time is not due to fast approaching senility, it is because it was my second grandson's christening ceremony yesterday. My son decided to invite some of the older generation (i.e. friends of mine, and his dad's), who have always been around as he was growing up. Oh how much I enjoyed conversations with my old friends... that's friends from a long time, not friends who are old (phew, glad we cleared that one up.... you never know who might be reading!!) Not least because I was able to introduce my husband so that he could put faces to names again, but also because it is during 'catch-up' sessions with friends from the past that one gets a real sense of belonging.

Belonging..... to a particular group of like-minded people, to an era full of memories of children growing up and playing together, to a particular generation, to one's own family, and the greater family of humanity itself.

I remember very clearly being told as a child that I was part of God's family. That we are all God's children, and that as our Father, He loves us all. Yesterday as my son, his wife and the godparents were invited, and agreed, to introduce our precious and beautiful new member of our family, Nicolas Benjamin, into the family of the Catholic Church I became very aware of the profound human need to belong.

I am not Catholic myself, and neither are my children. But my daughter in law is, and it was for her sake that my son agreed that Nicolas would be baptised into her faith. Because she needed her children to belong to her family faith. I understand that.

Each time I start a new series of classes or a new spiritual development group, something happens. Subtly, after a short term together we have formed a bond of acceptance and friendship, a unity, a closeness which is hard to express in words, a kind of family. It has happened for a few years now, group after group have remained friends after the classes finish. Some people are like that, aren't they?
My husband says I am like a pied piper character bringing people together who then become friends. Hopefully I lead them a little way along a path of self-discovery... until they find a journey which suits them, and then I go off whistling another magical tune for the next merry band of friends.

Amusingly I wonder if my own sense of needing to belong is what attracts me to forming groups... Having been brought up an only child, of an only child, we don't have a big family (to say the least)and yet I now know so many people, for whom I have a genuine lasting affection.

One theory is that we are always born into and alongside our soul group. Therefore as we move along through life the stronger our own sense of self-awareness, and the higher our personal vibration the more attractive we become to the other members of our soul group. We find them, and they find us as we are brought together on the same path to interact, mutually support, befriend and love.

How do we know we are with our soul group? Because we have a sense of having known them all our life. There are aspects of their purpose which resonate with us deeply. There is an understanding, an empathy which enables and empowers us. We feel as if we belong in relationship with one another... for whatever reasons, it just feels right!.

Just recently a lovely email came round the circuits again, telling us that we are in relationships for a reason, and a season. Sometimes our relationships are to teach us something and they are over as soon as we have learned whatever it was (or not! In which case the lesson will be repeated, until we finally 'get it') and sometimes the relationship lasts a life time. The second kind is usually because you have chosen to be with this person/soul/lesson for the duration of your (this time)family life!

Ah, yes that's where I believe I came in to this little ramble, ... yesterday we were invited to make Nicolas a member of the family of the Church.

But today I want to welcome you to 'this' family ... a family of those of us who have been touched by the angels in some small (or huge) way. all of us who have opened their hearts, rolled up their sleeves, re-membered who they are, pledged to make a difference, finding their soul group ... realising they, and we all belong to the same family after all.
We are all one. Children, adults, male,female, old and young, whatever colour, creed, faith or culture. We are all one!

One of the greatest spiritual teachers, ever, once told his followers that in order to arrive in the Kingdom of Heaven we should become like children. To become like children.
What fun! How marvellous! It's like imagining playing a huge game of 'Angel tag'. Oh let's join in and play.

As I touch your heart, in some small way, so you touch someone else's ... and the game grows! With joy, and laughter, and light, and love!

Lets bring the joy and laughter and love into our family life that we would all love to see in our immediate families, and those around us. We know we can do it for one another, after all ... we're family!

Blessings in abundance,

Chrissie