Flourishing, Feelings and Family

Feelings of worth can flourish only in an atmosphere where individual differences are appreciated, mistakes are tolerated, communication is open, and rules are flexible — the kind of atmosphere that is found in a nurturing family.
– Virginia Satir:

Within Families Children Learn to Cope with this World

“Let us . . . honor the special place of the family.  As James Q. Wilson wrote:“ ‘We learn to cope with the people of this world because we learn to cope with the members of our family. Those who flee the family flee the world; bereft of the [family’s] affection, tutelage, and challenges, they are unprepared for the [world’s] tests, judgments, and demands’      (The Moral Sense [1993], 163).” Neal A. Maxwel, “The Tugs and Pulls of the World,” Liahona, Jan. 2001, 44

Why then, in this age of progress…

I listened to a young lady speak the other day about some of “most important things” in life.  In the course of her talk she used the following quote which I later asked her to send to me.  She said she pulled it from a book entitled, Secrets of a Happy Life by David O. Mckay:

 “Man has reached out and touched the ends of the earth with speed, sound and scientific invention. He has probed the minds of men and motivated them with signs, symbols and semantics. He has conquered nature and subdued her might by man-made machines. Why then, in this age of progress, is man faced with global strife and national unrest; broken homes and juvenile delinquency; prejudice and persecution; fears and frustration? Why is man’s greatest challenge all too often his greatest defeat?”  

Like so many of the great questions of life… the question itself contains the answer.  The answer to nearly all of the ills and challenges we currently face in the world can be traced back to things that were not taught or modeled in the home.   Our greatest failures begin there, and they can end there.  But not until we all choose to become personally and collectively accountable to this singular fact.  There is no government or social program that can do or accomplish what two loving parents can do.  To get our world right, our nation right and communities right…we must first get our hearts and our homes right.  It all begins in the home.

The Family Shipyard

“The family is God’s greatest masterpiece.  Within it we find our greatest happiness.  This is not only a fundamental religious doctrine, it is also a scientifically documented fact.  Two scholars, L. Vander Post and J. Taylor, in their compelling Testament to the Bushman, summed it up nicely:  “It remains an irrefutable social and individual premise that no culture has ever been able to provide a better shipyard for building stormproof vessels for the journey of man from the cradle to the grave than the individual nourished in a loving family”.” 

Dr. Glenn I. Latham in his book, Christlike Parenting

What is a family?

While Margaret Thatcher was presiding as Prime Minister of Great Britain, she expressed this accurate philosophy:

“The  family is the building block of society.  It is a nursery, a school, a hospital, a leisure centre, a place of refuge and  a place of rest.  It encompasses the whole of the society.  It fashions our beliefs; it is the preparation for the rest of our life.”

May we make our homes sanctuaries to which our family members will want to return. 

Rebecca Weisler