The First Principle: Make a commitment to your family and hometown

Previous Lesson | Home | Contents | Next Lesson

LESSON 7: The Family is the Cornerstone

A. True families naturally give of themselves for the welfare of the wider world.

Through commitment to work through our family for the benefit of our hometown, we take responsibility in relation to God, and in relation to our fellows.

1. Taking responsibility before God.

• This means that we are answerable first to God for what we do, and we are willing to be answerable for what others do around us.
• In this sense we can be called a representative family, because we represent the world to God and God to the world.
• In the Bible, God relied upon representative families to fulfill historical responsibilities. We should realize that this is the value of our family in front of God.
• What we represent.
  • We represent God and God's true love.
  • Isaiah called us to be "a light to the nations" (Isa 42:6). Jesus spoke about letting your light shining forth before men, so that they might glorify God (Matt. 5:16). The Puritans were called to create a "city on a hill," a Christian commonwealth for all the world to see.
  • We represent humankind.
  • Bringing with us all human frailties, and yet giving everything and humbly offering ourselves.

2. Taking responsibility before others.

• Taking responsibility for other's around us, and serving them, naturally draws people to us. This makes one's family a central family.
• A president is a central family of his nation, a governor of his state.
• We can be central to:
  • Our own extended family.
  • Our church, temple or mosque.
  • Our field or profession.Our hometown.
  • Some find ways to serve even larger wholes, such as a religious institution, a nation, or even the global arena.
• A central family leads a public life.
  • My time is for others. Whatever the needs of my community, I will put them first, even when it impinges on my privacy.
  • As a family, when one takes a public position, others in the family also become public. A politician campaigns with his wife and children. A spouse and children who support a public person may have to make many sacrifices; they do it and thereby participate in his public mission.
  • A central family protects and nourishes others, educates others, and becomes the natural leader in the community.

3. This is the ethic of a true family.

B. The arena of action for true love is one's hometown.

1. We take the welfare of our community as our own.

• We should not depend upon supernatural intervention, whether from God, outer space, or from a wonderful beneficent government.
• Goodness must grow, step by step, from the actions of committed people.

2. The task of building a good society begins in our home and neighborhood.

• Evils of selfish family-centeredness, of the attitude that my home is my castle, which is the root of dictatorship and favoritism.
• Crime goes down when neighbors act together to care for the neighborhood.
• All great leaders began on the local level and worked their way up.

3. What is a hometown?

• It is where I was born and/or where my children were born.
• It is where my ancestors lived and died.
• It is like the Garden of Eden for Adam and Eve; it is anywhere and everywhere on earth.
• It includes the ownership of property, economic enterprises, institutions of governance, cultural life, civic and recreational associations, and the institutions of spiritual life and family tradition.
• These are the arenas in which families interact, based upon their mutual commitment to the greater good, practicing, inculcating and celebrating true family values.
• This creates a "culture of heart" in the hometown, which is the kingdom of heaven on earth.
• An example is the motion picture, "It's a Wonderful Life." The hero sacrifices himself for the sake of his hometown, through the institution of the savings and loan, and through his marriage. His doubts concerning the value of his life are expelled when an angel reveals to him that his sacrifice had saved his town from becoming a hell-on-earth. "Mr. Holland's Opus" has a similar theme.
• All people are moved in their consciences by these kind of stories, because they reflect true family values.

4. From our hometown the kingdom connects with other hometowns and expands to cover the world.

C. Restoration of past failures is necessary to create harmonious relationships of mutual respect and common purpose.

1. This work is not easy. There are debts of sin to be paid, much pain to be resolved and overcome. Much love will be required.

2. Our families and communities are riddled by resentment, failure, hatred, frustration and broken hearts.

3. Before we build true peace, these must be healed and resolved.

4. Thus, the work of restoration comes before the new creation.

• Restoration is painful and it engenders opposition.
• This is because it confronts the sins of the past.
• Individuals may oppose our efforts and persecute us, yet this is not just their personal problem. They represent larger problems which have come down to them.
  • For example, hostility between religious groups is rooted in the experience of hundreds of years of conflict, warfare, oppression, etc.
  • Racism and nationalism also express unresolved resentments and bitterness from centuries of violent domination.
  • Just as serious are individual and family problems, such as alcoholism, infidelity, homosexuality and mental disorders, which pass on distortions of love received from parents and grandparents.
  • Dealing with those requires facing and resolving the past within the present-day relationships.

D. Our responsibility also includes perfecting the environment.

All of nature depends on the people who have the power to abuse it or beautify it, according to their quality of love and purpose.

1. The environment begins with my own home and neighborhood, and the value of all homes and neighborhoods.

2. My personal habits should not be wasteful of the earth's gifts.

3. Maintain a sense of gratitude to nature for what it offers to us: food, housing, clothing, energy-even air and sunlight should be appreciated sincerely.

4. When all families practice this, the earth will rejoice.

E. Basic lessons of the First Principle, to begin true love in one's family and hometown.

• The family as a whole makes the commitment for the real down-to-earth environment of the hometown.
• The family is a rich organism with many dimensions, both spiritual and physical, which are bound together through true love.
• True love begins from God, is manifested in the family, and expands to the world.
• A free society can succeed only when grounded in true families who are living this way.

In the Second Principle, starting with the following lesson, we will begin to explore how true family values work within each family.

Previous Lesson | Page Top | Contents | Next Lesson

MEANINGFULL ENCOUNTERS