Barn Dance -- The Spirituality of Family

What are the spiritual possibilities of family? Today’s families are complex social groups – no longer is there a “norm” for what constitutes “family.” In fact, what’s that saying? – The only thing normal today is the setting on your clothes dryer!


When I grew up, a so-called “normal family” was mom and dad and 2.5 kids. I never knew another child whose parents were divorced. The operating values of those families were “duty and responsibility.” Not so today. Today’s operating values, I would suggest, are “happiness and fulfillment.”

Now I am not writing this piece to complain. We cannot and should not go back to the 1950s or 60s. But what we can do is to try and better understand where we once were, where we are now and how we can proceed into the future with integrity.

In the family in which I grew up, I was the oldest and had a younger sister. There was no divorce in my family memory – and no major apparent issues. “Issues” simply were not discussed.

But when I set out from home in the late 1950s, I seemed to enter a different world. I married young when I was in the Marines (it lasted 7 years and we had three children together).  My next marriage found me with three children from my first marriage, plus three more. It lasted for 15 years.  The third time I seemed to get it right. My wife and I have been married for nearly 30 years and we have three grown children whom we adopted.

Now that’s a complex family! Nine children ranging from 50 years of age to 26. Eleven grandchildren. Two ex-wives. Eleven grand-children and a range of relationships not only between me and my adult children but also between those children who share the same father, but not the same mother. Nevertheless, happiness and fulfillment were, and continue to be, important to me while I feel some shame about former marriages that, no doubt, come from my growing up being taught family is about duty and responsibility – NOT about happiness and fulfillment. Yet, I can say that I recognize the problems to which I have contributed and take responsibility for them.

As I said, this is a complex family with complex relationships. The only way I can explain my family is through a metaphor – the metaphor of a large barn dance. Everyone in the community is invited to the dance. Some show up more frequently than others. There is a lot of talking – as the years have passed more participants are engaged in the talking and more are testing out the fun of dancing together. In the early years, few came to the dance, now more are engaged and there is a standing invitation to come to the dance.

Over the years, I have found that I cannot participate in every dance, nor can I be responsible for everyone’s happiness and fulfillment. I have apologized to my children that I was not always the best father. In the early years, I invested a lot of my time and energy into my career thinking that a good father is first of all a good provider. I did what I thought was bests and now I must realize that some of the decisions I made (like divorce or spending too much time at the office) was harmful to my older children.

I know I was a young father and not always emotionally available. Thankfully, I grew older and I think I finally leaned how to be a good husband and father. I continued to work on my emotional/spiritual life. In short, I have tried to learn some new dances.

All this, of course, has not been easy on my large and extended family. We have suffered the loss of a grand-daughter… my wife has an incurable blood cancer… my youngest daughter, an army officer, is now stationed in Afghanistan, and a number of us have struggled with alcohol and other drug abuse. In our journey together, we have experienced personal tragedies, life-struggles, losses and divorces along with many joys. I tend also to include in my family those who were once married to my children and are now custodial parents of my grandchildren.

This summer, some of my children have organized a “barn dance” at our farm. I sense we all are trying to continue to grow our relationships… to forgive one another… and now dancing is becoming easier.

But the bottom line for all of us (and the spirituality of all relationships) is love – how to give it and how to receive it. How will we put aside our childhood family expectations? We, like our families, are not perfect. But my continuing prayer throughout the years has been for restoration and renewal – “it ain’t over ‘till it’s over!”

After all, ife is too precious and short to waste on anger and resentment when healing is possible. Life starts out slow. Remember your summers as a youth? They seemed to last forever. Now, as we grow older, it all speeds up. What was once a summer is now a decade! Therefore, it’s a terrible waste of our life not to enjoy it – not to dance!

It is in this process of “doing family” that God can be sought and found. The true spirituality of family is being able to see the face of God in one another; being able to put aside the regrets, pain, loss, and grief of our childhood and no longer let it dictate our future. What was was and cannot be undone – and that can be okay!

I pray that you, too, will be able to enter into and enjoy your family’s “barn dance” – after all, it is the only dance in town.

Blessings to each one of you!