Genesis 49:2, 8-10
Psalm 72:1-8
Matthew 1:1-7, 17
Today’s reading is about genealogy, the quest to understand ourselves through our ancestry. My son has done a DNA test to discover more about himself. My historian cousin has researched our family’s genealogy as far back as ten generations. But I wonder how my DNA or a list of my ancestors can truly help me enter into the mystery of who I am.
What does it mean that I hunger to more deeply know a person and to be known? To surrender more and more into love from the core of my heart? To experience more deeply my soul connection in the web of all life, and to feel the tug of all I am tied to? What does it mean that I thirst for silence? That I feel soothed when spirits make their presence known, but that when my own daughter’s spirit arrives, I long for more, to touch and hold her? What is that ancient ache of yearning that reaches from my depths, triggered by a luminous full moon, a baby’s murmur, deep notes of the shakuhachi or cello, a sunset and warm breeze, or the first daffodils of spring?
I expect we all yearn for a mysterious ‘more’ that is beyond ourselves. Maybe I am right to let go of ideas of family origin and just follow my longing. Maybe the better question is not, “Who are my ancestors?” or even “Who am I?”, but “Whose am I?”
– Barbara Sheppard
