During the summer months the television channels seem to only have repeats, so I have been finding books to read. I would like you to believe that I have been improving my mind and reading hefty tomes of intelligent literature, but I am afraid that would be misleading you. My two favourite genres are murders and family sagas, and a real treat is a family saga involving a murder. Looking back over decades in a family saga nearly always involves discovering some secret from the past. Something that was deemed scandalous but now wouldn’t be a problem. It occurred to me that most of these novels are about lack of love and understanding within the family and the community. Sadly, I think possibly a lot of today’s problems in families and society are still about lack of love and understanding towards each other. We may not need the smelling salts if we find out some unmarried person is having a child or has fallen in love with a person of a different social standing, but we can get very upset or angry over things that really don’t warrant it. This isn’t new by any means and in the Bible Jesus spends a lot of time trying to get over his message of love. In John 13.34 he says “Let me give you a new command: Love one another. In the same way I loved you, you love one another”. Sounds like quite a big order to me. He is saying that He loves us and in the same way we should continue to pass that love on to all others. It is easy to continue not speaking or bearing a grudge long after everyone has forgotten what it is all about. We need to try and prevent this by showing love and understanding. My reading of these novels has made me realise how long and disrupting these feuds can be. I am going to try to make sure that I don’t leave these problems for my family to sort out. Great to read about them in novels but not so in real life.
God Bless
Maureen Kendall