My wife and I come from very large and extended families.  Our parents were born to share-cropping families which migrated to northern urban areas in the 1920s and 30s.   Like their migrating parents, they and their siblings were hardworking laborers, domestics and tradesmen.  They lived in “enclaves of rural culture” in Pennsylvania cities.  These enclaves, which included church and civic organizations, preserved their stories, values and dreams.  My generation (Baby Boomers) is comprised of various professions and diverse middle-class life styles, cultural interests and political persuasions.  We live in communities on the east and west coasts, and many of us have returned to the southland of our grandparents.  So when we are together for reunions (200 or more people), there is the usual catching up and hugs, laughter and introductions.  Often there are “pick-up” basketball and softball games.  I particularly enjoy the hilarious story-telling by the elders and the arguments about whose recall of the “old days” is more accurate.

As the day wears on, my cousins who are politicians encounter others who think politics is all about conspiracy against “the people.”  There are the few vegetarians who are angry that no provisions were made for them in the meal plan, and they prophesy that we will all die of southern fried cooking.  The entrepreneurial “capitalists” clash with the social reform idealists on how to solve national problems.  And you can imagine what happens when the Pentecostals stop by the beer-bearing tables of the non-church-going clans of the family.

But in the evening, something very special always happens.  There is singing.  Whether we are Baptist, Methodist, Pentecostal, Episcopal or non-church folk, the singing starts to draw us together.  Some of our siblings and cousins are wonderful musicians and, like priests of an ancient tradition, they lift up old gospel songs and Negro spirituals—melodies and rhythms rooted in the rural southlands.  No one asks, “Do you really believe the words of that song?”  Or, “Where are the ‘Republican Baxters’ standing so I can join them (or avoid them, as the case may be)?”  No, more than any other moment in these grand gatherings, the singing draws us together in a spirit of gratitude.  These are the songs of our heritage in which I hear the voices of ancestors—grandparents, old aunts and uncles—including some I dearly love, but see no more.  The family on earth and in heaven is singing.  Young children watch the adults with amazement and try to pick up the tunes or clap their hands.

In these moments gratitude for our common life overwhelms our differences.  The gratefulness is palpable:  gratitude for the faith and courage of ancestors and parents, gratitude for the love and dreams which have brought us over a long, difficult road to this generation.  Most of all, we feel gratitude to God by whose grace we share in such a special heritage.  Somehow the singing brings remembrance that who we are in our common root is greater than the differences which distinguish us.

As you might expect, after the singing, the debates, competitions and differing agendas do re-emerge, but I always experience it differently after the singing.  The exhortations and admonitions, the cajoling and contesting continue, but with a new-found wisdom that seems to says, “You are different, maybe even errant, but you are family, you are me.”  Somehow this ritual of singing produces a common experience of grace, a grace that transforms the individual and corporate spirit to our essential identity as a family.  As an Episcopalian I often reflect upon this singing as an experience of making Eucharist; that is, an experience in which the brokenness, sacrifice and love of a past time enters into our present lives. It is for me a moment in time where the living and the dead share a common sacrament of memory and gratitude which tempers and graces the hard work of shaping our future together.

“And be thankful.  Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; teach and admonish one another in all wisdom; and with gratitude in your hearts sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God.”