The Lenity of a Brother

Well, after a long and unintentional sabbatical (is that possible?) I have been ever so gently urged by some to post again. I have started re-reading Edith Schaeffer's What is a Family? I decided to read this again as well as The Hidden Art of Homemaking which happens to be my favorite book (well one of them). I haven't read them in years and haven't read What is a Family since I actually had my own family. Figured that was a good idea. In describing the family, Schaeffer uses a mobile to describe the family. She says:

" A mobile is a moving, changing collection of objects constantly in motion, yet within the farmework of a form. The framework of a family gives form, but as one starts with a man and woman, a mother and father, there is never any one day following another when these two, plus the children that come through adoption or birth into the home, are either the same age or at the same point of growth. Every individual is growing, changing, developing, or declining- intellectually, emotionally, spiritually, physically, and psychologically. A family is a grouping of individuals who are affecting each other intellectually, emotionally, spiritually, physically, psycologically. No two years, no two months, or no two days is there the exact same blend or mix within the family, as each individual person is changing. If people are developing in a variety of creative areas, coming to deeper understanding spiritually, adding a great deal of knowledge in one area or another, living through stimulating discoveries of fresh ideas or skills- they are affecting each other positively. The mobile of the grouping of toddlers with young school children, of ten-year-olds with teenagers, of young married couples with middle-aged married couples, of grandparents with two generations coming along under them, is amazingly real, vivid, and living as any possible mobile one could imagine. What is a Family? A family is a mobile. A family is an art form. A family is an exciting art career, because an art form needs work."
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And so you see in the picture above a small part of our mobile. Since no one's art is just like another's.... no two families are alike. That's just another part of the complexity of God's creation. We tend to think of the world around us: the animals, mountains, valleys, oceans, and universe, as God's creation but our families are yet another facet of God's creation. He created every one of us!
...And I happen to like the creation that surrounds me.