"And he answered them, saying 'Who is
my mother
or my brethren?'. And he looked round about on them which sat about
him, and said 'Behold
my mother
and my brethren! For whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is
my brother and my sister and
my mother.'."
...
Jesus Christ,
quoted by both apostles Matthew and Mark
This essay,
Family In Me II,
is the companion piece to
Big Enrollment.
Everyone's had the feeling after
watching
a really good movie: you want
all your friends
to go and see it too. You're effusive in your enthusiasm for it. They
ask you "What's it about?". You say "Dun't esk. I don't want to
spoil it for you by telling you what happens. Go and see it ... just
go. You'll thank me later.".
Werner's
work (which is to say
participating
in
Werner's work)
is like
watching
a great movie: you want
all your friends
and all your family to experience it as well, indeed you want everyone
you know (and everyone you don't know) to experience it
too. But of
all the people
you want to experience it, if you tell
the truth
about it,
the people
you most want to experience it, are your family. This essay doesn't
focus on that. It does focus on
why
wanting your family to experience it, could unwittingly set you up to
be disappointed. It's not an inevitable disappointment. But without
inquiring into
what "family" is, it might be.
By "family" I'm referring to your "birth family" ie your biological
parents and siblings,
the people
with whom you most likely grew up,
the people
with whom your
family bond
runs deep, the people with whom profound psychological and social
connections were created - from a very early and impressionable age.
Love
and affinity flow powerfully via these connections simply because
they're birth family. Biological connections however, as precious
and as cherished as they are, as genetically
shared
as they are, offer no guarantee that the traits carried in the double
helix of the family DNA (DeoxyriboNucleic
Acid)
sharea listening
for transformation, even though they may
share
other common traits like hair color, blood type, and organ
compatibility. Assuming that the
shared
family genetics carry
a common listening
for transformation just because they are family, is naïve, and
almost certain to unwittingly lead to disappointment.
In my experience, the source of disappoinment is the
unfulfilled
expectation that biological family will
share
the enthusiasm for
Werner's workjust because they're biological family, a disappointment which
includes not being gotten as you
share
your experience of it with them (like that must-see movie,
the one you gotta see, go, just go, you'll thank me later? - but they
don't go ...). People don't
participate
readily in that in which they aren't
enrolled.
And so I soon realized that if I wanted my family to experience what
I'd experienced, I'd have to
enroll
them - just like I would have to
enroll
anyone with whom I wanted to
share
it. Biological family (it came as no surprise in retrospect) are no
exception. The biology ie the DNA doesn't guarantee the affinity.
People will not go and see that movie just because you're excited about
it. But they can be
enrolled.
And when I overlook that or forget it, I set myself up to be
disappointed.
There's something else I've
discovered
in this conversation about
enrolling
family to
participate
in
Werner's work.
It's this:
my three children
are
graduates.
They opted not to continue afterwards with
advanced programs.
That's totally OK with me (and I stay open to the possibility). The
conversation among us has been irrevocably altered anyway. I speak with
them in the same context with the same distinctions as I would with any
other
graduates.
It's like being a college
graduate:
once you're a
graduate,
you're always a
graduate,
whether you continue to
advanced programs,
or not. That's as much as I could ask.
