"Roots.................."

My sister, about a year younger than me, flew in from just north of Miami last night, her children and a few friends meeting at Red Lobster for a late dinner. Beth and I, plus a cousin and his wife, joined them, reminiscing a bit, memories shared, the first time Peggy and Danny had talked since childhood. Nothing divisive had occurred, no feud developed along the way. Life just takes us in different directions, thousand miles of geography between people not always the reason we lose contact with each other. Saturday she is fulfilling a request, serving as the “parent-in-proxy” for another cousin who is getting married, the event not marked on my calendar, that segment of the family tree, even though scattered here locally, “living in another world” than this old man. Such remark is not meant as a reflection on their character, only to say, while family is a bond secured somehow through a “spiritual umbilical cord” of sorts, yet our individualities tend to separate us as we go. Our likes and dislikes, our beliefs and values, all play a part in this, our paths splitting and the years increasing the gap until all that remains is that connection shared, that point in your past when, as kids, camping trips and Christmas are mutually claimed. I wonder sometimes what the future will bring our six grandkids, Steven a hundred miles away since birth and experiencing this side of his relations merely on celebratory get-togethers for the most part. The two oldest are brothers, Elijah and Cody returning tonight from Honduras, their natures not all that similar, but their souls tightly linked, their relationship with the three youngest, Caleb, McKenna, and Noah, once secured through joint adventures shared from the beginning. All have been raised within the church and that environment, the reality of Christ, marks who they are. Whatever tomorrow may bring, whether time will divide them in so far as a physical location, my hope is in a Holy Ghost who is able to keep them “one” regardless of all else. There is no greater adhesive……