There's a great story in the book Grounded by Diana Butler Bass of feeling connected to a place you've never been before. She tells of taking a vacation with her husband up the eastern shore of Maryland to visit historical sites, on of them being the Third Haven (Quaker) Meeting House outside of Easton. She describes her experience there and says she wanted to stay there forever. She later learns, during some genealogical research, that she has ancestors connected to that church.
from the website: http://www.thirdhaven.org/index.php
Our roots form us. Our ancestors breathe our lives into future existence. They create who we are, even if we don't know who they are. When I read this chapter last year, I knew instantly that I wanted to have an experience like that. I was writing a grant proposal at the time to take a sabbatical leave and added to it some travel to Northern Ireland and England to explore my ancestral villages. Unfortunately, I wasn't awarded the grant and therefore, my travel plans were halted, but I do hope one day to be able to explore those villages and see if I, too, can have a connection like Bass does in that meeting house in Maryland. Some of you have told me that you have felt connections like that upon finding a great grandparent's house or visiting a European city that once was home to your ancestors. I am anxious to know that feeling, too.
There are reasons why the book by Alex Haley and later TV mini series Roots became so popular in the 1970s. And why sites like Ancestry.com has become so popular. There are reasons why the Mormon Church has one of the world's largest genealogy collections. There are reasons why the lineage of the Kings and Queens of England is steadfastly protected and why the line of Catholic popes traces itself all the way back to Peter. Human beings wish to be connected to who we were and who we are. Of course, there are other less-than-appealing reasons also, like maintaining patriarchy or racial or tribal purity. But there is something profound about the way a story of our ancestral heritage affects us that is undeniable. We DO feel grounded in that knowledge.
Paul writes in his letter to the Romans in chapter 11
If a root is holy, the branches will be holy too. If some of the branches were broken off, and you were a wild olive branch, and you were grafted in among the other branches and shared the root that produces the rich oil of the olive tree, then don’t brag like you’re better than the other branches. If you do brag, be careful: it’s not you that sustains the root, but it’s the root that sustains you. --Romans 11:16b-18
It's not you that sustains the root, but it's the root that sustains you. We are not the sum total of who we have created ourselves to be, rather we are part of a larger equation that began being computed long before we found ourselves in it and will continue to be added to long after we are gone. And all of what comes after is held to the same roots that have always held us to one another.
That is true not only of our biological genealogy, but of our chosen families like the church and our neighborhoods. What roots of church and neighborhood are holding us together now? What roots are influencing what we do and don't do in our locations even now?
Thoughts? Email me at peverhart@niwotumc.org or comment here by clicking the comments link below.
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