Just to be clear: I am NOT trying to instigate a fight, but I guess I am joining in the ongoing brawl.  Defining “family” is as near a raw nerve as any dentist could ever hope to drill.   Even a painstakingly, carefully worded explanation of family is likely to garner more vigorous feedback than it deserves.

Should “family” even be defined?  If so, why? If not, why not?  Why the interminable tenderness regarding attempts to define family?

This is my theory: Even those who are unable to testify to anything closely resembling “family,” know they are somehow part of a family.  That irritating, inescapable knowledge simply will not be ignored by the human fraternity, so we attempt to categorize and label as “family” groups of people, or groups of people and beasts, or groups of people and beasts and plant life. We somehow need the order of “belonging,” to help us make sense of our own inexplicable presence.

[Is it possible we at least agree that it takes a minimum of two biological entities to form a “family”? My sincerest apologies to pet minerals, dolls, cars, boats, and other inanimate objects.]

So why not just leave well enough alone?  Let’s just define “family” however it suits us best at the moment, for as long as we prefer a particular definition, or until a particular definition no longer prefers us.  Afterwards we can redefine family to be something novel according to the present felt need, unshackled from history or the future.  What is “family” can just be a term for the metamorphosing present.

The answer to the powerful question is quite simple: without a definition of “family” there can be no refined responsibility.  If I am not part of the family of humans, what happens to an individual on other side of the globe, or city, is no concern of mine.  If I am not part of the family which is my nation, how it is governed is irrelevant, unless it personally troubles me.  If I am not part of the family of my siblings, I bear no responsibility as their “keeper.” If I am not part of the family of my congregation, I have no obligation to be participating in something much more grand than I could ever be on my own.

 Solitude gives birth to the original in us, to beauty unfamiliar and perilous–to poetry. But also, it gives birth to the opposite: to the perverse, the illicit, the absurd.–Thomas Mann

Glasses up in a toast to the family, the thing which reminds us that we were summoned out of solitude and into communion.

Now let’s go discover Famil-eeze.