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Off Road with the Family
Family Values ... what does that
mean? In the main stream media it's a volatile phrase usually heard in
debates about whether gay marriages should be recognized. That's not a subject I care about,
because if a majority of the
people want to grant a marriage license to gay couples
our culture will survive. Legalizing gay marriage won't make heterosexual
people gay any more than owning a gun makes law abiding people murderers.
But instead of being
controversial, "family values" should be a term that speaks to every human being
on the planet, since we are all in a family of some kind. It's tied in with all
aspects of our lives from birth to death, and incorporates the sacrifices we
make for those we love and how well we accept and repay the sacrifices made for
us. And how well our culture supports the family unit.
A culture is built on families,
as it is families that have the greatest stake in the future and families that
understand the concept of the "common good." It's standing up for our families
that gives us the strength to fight for what is right and understand what is
important. I know having children changed my life in ways I couldn't have
imagined when single and "unencumbered," which seems to be a universal
experience.
I wish I had a better excerpt to
put below, but concepts of family are so central to Off Road that it's
hard to break out meaningful paragraphs from any one place without including
spoilers. And family has so many, many different aspects. But perhaps the two
sentences below sum up the basics of what family means.
Chapter Seventeen (excerpt):
It struck me this was
another aspect of family. Family comes when you need them, even at two o’clock
in the morning. Family won’t let you suffer alone in a hospital bed. Even an
estranged wife cries for you.
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