Family

 I have always felt that the most important thing for any person is Family. And, what does that mean? So I went to dictionary.com and looked it up. And this is the official meaning of the word Family:

noun, plural fam·i·lies.

1. a basic social unit consisting of parents and their children, considered as a group, whether dwelling together or not:the traditional family.
2. a social unit consisting of one or more adults together with the children they care for:a single-parent family.

the children of one person or one couple collectively:We want a large family.

the spouse and children of one person:I'm taking the family on vacation next week.

any group of people closely related by blood or marriage, as parents, children, uncles, aunts, and cousins:to marry into a socially prominent family.

adjective

of, relating to, or characteristic of a family:a family trait.

belonging to or used by a family:a family automobile; a family room.

So this talks a lot about Genetic Families. And, while I believe that is important, I also believe that Family I choose is also just as important.

What is Family of choice you ask? Good question. And for me it is pretty basic, Family is whatever I say or choose it to be. In the world of 12 Step Recovery for example, a lot of people will begin their sharing by saying "Hello Family". They are choosing that particular 12 Step Fellowship as a Family.

And take a group of Veterans who have maintained the connection after their particular duty is done. They will often tell you that the people that they served with are their Brothers and/or Sisters.

And many other examples. So, for me, I think that, while important, blood ties are not more important than any other ties that give you that Family connection.

Now why are Families important. I think that Blood Families are important because they are the ones that we first begin to learn how to have Relationships with. And the way we learn here will affect all of our relationships moving forward for better or worse. It takes a lot of hard internal work later in life to shape or escape that influence and become able to form different types of relationships. And most of humanity never does that work.

Families that we choose later, of whatever type that we choose, also define us. These define us by the choices that we make as to who we choose to make that family. The choices we make in this are really a reflection of who we are. Because it will show everyone who can see who we are. I may be able to fool people about who I am. And the people that I surround myself with will show you exactly who I am. You ever want to spot good or evil people look at who they surround themselves with.

And finally, Families, of whatever sort that we have, ground us. They give us a definition of who we are to ourselves and the world around us. By being a member of a Family we are telling ourselves and the whole World "This is where I belong and I will defend this ground and these people".

And finally, without Family, we have no roots, no grounding, we are alone in the worst sense of the word. We are not connected to anything. Without Family we are walking corpses that make noise but have no definition. We may have an effect on the world around us, and in my experience, it is always negative.

So today I call on all of us to Celebrate our Families, of Blood and Choice, with Joy and Love and Compassion. For we are all members of the Human Family and, as stated by Benjamin Franklin, "We must all hang together or we shall most certainly all hang separately".