Family

‘Family’ is kind of a big deal around here. Safe to say, its a central theme. In the ‘family farmstead’ moniker, family might as well be in caps! Why the emphasis? Are we serious? Or is this another of those omnipresent ‘virtue-signals’…letting everyone know, without actual knowledge or deed?

Let’s address each question in reverse. Are we virtue signaling, broadcasting without actually living?

Well, we hope not. We believe that good things should start as things learned, lived, and shared among family…even before sharing with friends and neighbors. To our mind, this approach serves as a sort of integrity insurance. If a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing as a family. One should develop and share one’s talents with family…then the wider community. Thus, quality is assured, ensuring that one is not simply playacting or self-serving. Nothing keeps one so down to earth as the daily humblings, the moment-to-moment stresses and frustrations inevitably accompanying the joys of family life.

Are we serious about ‘family’? Very. Family holds the key by which we unlock meaning and purpose. As John Paul II observed, “God created man in His own image and likeness: calling him to existence through love, He called him at the same time for love.” Love is not an exercise in self-fulfillment. Love is a gift of self, an offering of oneself to other for other’s sake. The good Lord didn’t make humans for His sake…but for our own sakes. We, ourselves, are meant to imitate the same. Doing so, we receive the joy of fulfillment. JPII continues: “God inscribed in the humanity of man and woman the vocation, and thus the capacity and responsibility, of love and communion.” Human nature is real. Male and female are real. Our calling, our mission and purpose in life, can be understood through acceptance of our embodied reality. Not only is each of us capable of self-gift….each of us has a responsibility to it. Love and intimate communion is our ultimate fulfillment. Family results…fulfillment follows fulfillment.

All well and good, but why emphasize ‘family’ in one’s public efforts? Because the family farmstead is a school of sorts, an extension of the school that is family. We recognize with JPII that “the family has vital and organic links with society, since it [family] is its [society’s] foundation and nourishes it continually through its role of service.” As hidden as one’s efforts might be, as stumbling an attempt though they be, so long as one does the best one can, one builds-up the common good.

So yes, family is a big deal around here. From our family to yours, cheers!