Nobody is perfect or "Why I cried watching Ricky and the Flash."

         

It might get lonely waiting for the perfect guest.

           So I went to see Ricky and the Flash with Meryl Streep which looks like a comedy in the previews but I was wrong.   I cried, and really I could have and would have cried harder if I had been home alone watching it.  I cried because the story is about a broken family that is still a family trying to find a way to be together.  I cried because a mother is judged by people who know her and those who don’t, I cried because love looks different to different people, and I cried because part of the pain this family feels is based on what others have told them they should look like.

            We all have our blood families, the ones we are born into and with.  My parents had four children and 11 grandchildren.  You could take those grandchildren shake them up in a bag and pass them out randomly to different parents and it would look like they belonged where ever they were placed---many of our children look like their aunts, uncles and cousins…you can tell we are family. 

            We also have our families that have no blood involved.  There are families made through marriage and divorce, there are families made through work and school and families that come together for no real reason other than there was an empty space, or to put a positive spin on that –because there was room at the table.

            It can cause great pain when we feel that we have failed as a family, and there is no sweeter joy than when we feel we have succeeded.  Of course in a family these two things are not mutually exclusive.  The “goodbye”, the “hello”, the “I’m sorry” and the “I forgive you” these are the constant sounds of potential endings and promising futures. 

            Five families have come out of my parent’s family, each one different, each one loved.   Oh we fight and yell; we are too loud and bossy- though we think we are pretty funny as well.   We are far from perfect but we have felt the sweet joy of success.

            Lately I have wondered what God must feel, the message sent out from the Holy Spirit in our midst as we squabble and judge one another.  I wonder about the idea of people closing the door to heaven when the kingdom of heaven is at hand. 

            What is the sweet joy of success for God’s family?  Could it be when we see each other as God’s children, born into a family, created in love, deserving of love.  Could it be when we pull out the empty chair and say welcome my brother, welcome my sister.

In her blog threads Claire Jones writes:

“Christ lays the table. There’s no one who could come that Jesus turns away. So let’s ditch our boxes for people to tick and our hoops for people to jump through; let’s do away with the fear that God might be at work without our consent.  Christ lays the table. We need to step out of the way, and welcome anyone and everyone to come and join him there.”

I have a large family, made up of the people I am related to and the people I have grown into, individually there is no perfect companion but it is the whole that makes me smile; a great success.