"I think family is key, and if you have love for family then you have love for others - and you have unity as people." Marlon Wayans (US american actor)
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| The last few weeks were dedicated to family time in Naujac-sur-Mer. Visits were given and received, many moments shared. This blog entry is a meditation about the little word "family" and its vast meaning. |
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| Luckily "home" in our case means being there where the people and projects we love are, and our tent is portable. And also, luckily "family" means more than being related by blood. It means being truely devoted to other beings (Latin origin "famulus = servant, helper"). And even though the word "servant" is highly polluted by man's history, think of it like that: if everyone were dedicated and devoted to everyone, no power, no oppression, no exploitation would exist. Google is once more ahead of time and already neutralized the word's meaning to "attendant", see here. |
"One day you will do things for me that you hate. That is what it means to be family." Jonathan Safran Foer (US american writor)
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| Kosma working the fields of Margot and Marie-Charlotte, two young organic farmers located just around the corner of La Rochade, the camping place which was home for us the past few weeks and home to Jonathan's mother for the past three years. Regarding the quote it is true yet also wrong. Because the magic is, that often through "family" in the already defined broad sense you can learn (naturally and not by manipulation) to value things you once thought you would hate. |
"The family is the first essential cell of human society." Pope John XXIII
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| Perseiden shootins star sky above Naujac-sur-Mer, captured by our brother in law, Johannes Ries. Makes one wonder if this quote shouldn't even go bigger and smaller at the same time, zooming in and out of micro and macro cosmos, looking at this vast organism called our universe. |
"A family is a place where minds come in contact with each other." Buddha
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| And what better scenery than the sea could be the meta-setting for such connections taking place: 1. Kosma collecting beach treasures with and for her grandmother Oma Gingi at Le Pin Sec and 2. Kosma playing "disappearing" with Lilly and Kai. |
"A mother discovers with great delight that one does not love one's children just because they are one's children but because of the friendship formed while raising them." Gabriel Garcia Marquez (Colombian writor)
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| Quote says it all, nothing to add. |
"If you can think of times in your life that you've treated people with extraordinary decency and love, and pure uninterested concern, just because they were valuable as human beings. The ability to do that with ourselves. To treat ourselves the way we would treat a really good, precious friend. Or a tiny child of ours that we absolutely loved more than life itself. And I think it's probably possible to achieve that. I think part of the job we're here for is to learn how to do it." David Foster Wallace (US american writor)
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| Nothing to add once more. So we leave you with two last quotes from two unlike men and until our next post which should reach you from somewhere in Spain. |
“To put the world right in order, we must first put the nation in order; to put the nation in order, we must first put the family in order; to put the family in order, we must first cultivate our personal life; we must first set our hearts right.” Konfucius
"There's a part of me that craves family and another part that just can't stand people. At the end of the day I feel like this lone wolf, but, you know, I do feel that I need a family." James Hetfield (Metallica)
Thanks for sharing! <3
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