And a woman who held a babe against her bosom said, Speak to us of Children.

And he said:

Your children are not your children.

They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.

They come through you but not from you,

And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,

For they have their own thoughts.

You may house their bodies but not their souls,

For their souls dwell in the house of [their] tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.

You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.

For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.

Sermon

         When I heard one of my colleagues say recently, that long ago he did a sermon on "how to be a good ancestor," it made me smile and wonder what on earth he could have said. I began my reflection for this topic with two viewpoints. First, I asked myself why the Bible makes such a big deal about ancestry. You may remember a whole list of "begats" at the beginning of two of the four Gospels. One begins with Abraham and ends with Jesus (the Gospel of Matthew 1:1-16). The other begins with Jesus and names all the ancestors from Jesus back to Adam (the Gospel of Luke 3:23-38). The central purpose would have been to give Jesus a noble and legitimate ancestry fulfilling the prophecy that a messiah would be born of King David's line. However, it was highly likely that Jesus of Nazareth was the son of a single mother, which would have been unthinkable to Jews and Romans alike. Being born of an unknown father was unthinkable right down to the early 1960's, wasn't it? (Most people attending the service nodded in agreement.)

         Nowadays, it is common for me to perform the wedding ceremonies of people who have children from prior unmarried relationships and I perform child blessings for single mothers. We Unitarian Universalists probably perform so many such ceremonies because more conservative clergy simply won't do them for people who don't conform to their doctrine. One young woman told me recently that the church she belonged to threw her out when she became pregnant. So much for loving one's neighbor!

         I created my second viewpoint by asking myself whether my ancestry was important to me. Apart from being interested in the three grandparents I loved and not at all interested in the grandfather I feared, I would say that my overall interest in my genealogy is almost non-existent. Perhaps it's because I'm not related to anyone of note. At least I don't think I am.

         I have friends who will tell endless stories about the findings of their ancestry and the journeys of discoveries they have made. The stories of their journeys that have taken them to Ireland and Italy are indeed interesting. And I know that in the 1980's, Alex Haley's story of Roots kept this nation spellbound for weeks while Kunte Kinte stubbornly refused to give up his roots. (About two-thirds of the congregation remembered this television series.)

         What about you? Is your ancestry important to you? If so, why?

         Very recently, Leo and I saw a movie called "American Rhapsody". It's about a family who escaped from Communist Hungary but their baby daughter could not join them until she was 6 years old. In her teens, she was rebellious and insisted on returning to her remembered "ideal" life on a farm in Hungary. On her return to Budapest she learned a great deal about her mother and the harshness of life behind the Iron Curtain. When she returned, she asked her mother, "Why didn't you tell me?" The mother replied, "I wanted to save you from the suffering I had." And then she said, "We are what our past has made us." We are what our past has made us. Is this true?

         I believe it is true to an extent. But I believe we can also build on and alter who the past has defined us to be. However, if we want to understand those who have come before us, we could do this by discovering their stories. Perhaps we owe it to our parents to listen to their stories for by this they also become to us persons and not just a parent or grandparent. And by our listening to them, we can understand what of their story has impacted us. If we could go back through the stories of generations, we could no doubt trace the influence of each upon the other, not only the physical likeness but also, perhaps, certain personality characteristics and struggles.

         So convinced are psychologists of the influence of generations, that if you go to seminary, you would be required to do an in-depth genogram. A genogram is a chart of at least three generations of your family with their personality characteristics and any interesting talents like poetry, art, or music or defects like explosive anger, criminal behavior, physical or mental illnesses, or addictions, and so on. The purpose would be to identify whether any of the positive or negative characteristics will be likely to show up in our ministry. This was so that we could know ourselves better so that we can deal better with personal difficulties. I read on the Internet, "Shake down the family tree and watch the nuts fall!"

         We cannot deny the importance of how we feel about our immediate family. Our feelings about them stay with us throughout our lives, even though we may come to terms with negative aspects. In the last two years, with the help of my sisters, I have written the eulogy or short biography of my mother and my father. It felt satisfying for us to have done this but I wish I had asked them more about their family so that I could have understood my parents better.

         One day, a boy asked his mother whether his ancestors were monkeys. His mother replied, "I don't know, I have never seen your father's people!"

         In our modern world, we will know less and less about those who have come before because we no longer write letters to one another about what we think and feel. Instead, we talk on the telephone, or use email or instant messaging, none of which are particularly reflective. We won't be leaving for future generations a written or spoken record of what we really think unless we make an effort. I highly recommend that we keep a journal or write a family history, along with our own. There is a truly excellent book in the library called Writing Family Histories and Memoirs by Kirk Polking.

         On a daily basis, we are making history. We don't have to write an entire book. We can just record daily, weekly, or occasional thoughts about the events of our life. I say this to myself as well. This will lead us to live more reflectively. Personal and spiritual growth will likely be enhanced. We might reflect on our early life with our family and our life with our family of origin as it impacts our current lives. We might ask ourselves what we admired and loved about our parents, aunts and uncles, and others. What do we appreciate about ourselves? Does any of it have its roots in our immediate family? What do we prefer not to pass on to the next generation? What would we not write about? Could it be helpful to them in creating their genogram?

         From my book club, I recently bought a book called A Small Treatise on the Great Virtues (by Andre Comte-Sponville). He talks about such things as politeness, fidelity, courage, generosity, compassion, gratitude, gentleness, and many more virtues. Of course, I thought we could have some sermons about these. If we wish, we can become more intentional ancestors by creating some of these virtues in our lives. The grandparents I loved had many of these virtues; the one I feared had none.

         We don't have to be a parent to be an ancestor. We are all ancestors whether we are uncles, aunts, foster parents, older siblings, or even just in the Big Brother or Big Sister program for children who are missing ancestors. We become good ancestors by cultivating the qualities that religion and virtue books teach us. The first and foremost in my mind is loving behavior but also with appropriate boundaries. This was the great commandment of Jesus and the Buddha--loving our neighbors, whether they are single moms or dads, gay or straight, recovering addicts, ex-convicts, and above all, all the children of this world. We can also use our Seven Principles as a guide to measure our progress and I remind us that they are printed in your Order of Service with a box around it.

         We will be known by future generations by the story of our lives-by our words, yes, but more powerfully by our deeds. I was wondering the other day whether my children, Veena and Neil, will remember how we used to lie in bed at night and read all of C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia. And will they remember that I attended all their music performances, and so on. I hope the positives outweigh the negatives.

         Corporations and schools and churches and all institutions also have histories and are ancestors of future institutions. In the coming months, we will try to discover more of the history of our church and trace what has influenced who we are today. Next week we will look at how a Japanese boy, John Manjiro, found by a whaling captain on a desert island, has influenced this church. Next week, John Manjiro's ancestors will attend our service and we will "break bread" with them afterwards with the potluck dishes we make for them. Our potluck luncheon will become a communion with them.

         As well as memorable stories, a good ancestor is one who passes on by example to the next generation valuable guidelines to live by. And a good ancestor takes the trouble to reflect upon and record in some way the virtues and stories (and the warts as well), thus ensuring his or her place in history.

         One genealogist said, "What worthier effort…can we make than to seek out the story of our ancestry and record and preserve it for future generations…a legacy to your children and grandchildren….When you and I and a sufficient number of other people start finding our roots, the whole world may recognize at last that we are all one family, and that it is time we learned to live in love and peace and goodwill toward all mankind. The biblical story also aimed to do this. May we contribute to it massively!

         Kahlil Gibran tells us that "[We] are the bows from which [our] children as living arrows are sent forth." May our bows be strong yet flexible and our aim true and loving so that the arrows fall in hospitable ground.

References

The following have informed and inspired this sermon:

Gibran, Kahlil. The Prophet, New York, N.Y: Alfred A. Knopf, 1972.

Polking, Kirk. Writing Family Histories and Memoirs, Cincinnati, Ohio: Betterway Books, 1999.

Westin, Jeane Eddy. Finding Your Roots: How to Trace Your Ancestors at Home and Abroad, New York, N.Y: Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam, 1998.