My material grandparents were both born in the 19th century. They lived long enough that I knew them. I was particularly fond of my grandmother. Their house had a huge front porch with a swing and rocking chairs. After lunch we would all go out to the front porch. I asked my grandmother once, “What are we doing?”

She said, “We are watching the world go by.”

After we watched the passing world we were required to go inside and “be still.” Looking back, I understand that was grandparent for “we are napping, you kids don’t bother us.” Forced stillness is tough on a six-year-old. But even at that I have memories. When I was still, I would imagine what the people in that painting were doing.

That painting depicted a bearded man sitting with his wife and two children. My mother inherited the painting from her mother. When my mother died, I took the painting of the bearded man and his family. As a child, I had a vague notion that those people were family. When we cleaned out mom’s house, seeing that painting again after so many years brought back strangely comforting feelings. My siblings had no such affinity for the painting. I took it home.

We live in a world of reciprocal relationships. We say it like this, “what goes around comes around.” Don’t admit this to anyone, but you know that in your heart what you have received in life is what you have planted. This can be a hard truth to swallow in places. And it will break down at times because of evil and human sinfulness. With those caveats, it seems to be true. If you want to change your luck, then change your behavior. If you want to have more friends, be friendlier. If you want financial peace become generous. You get the idea; you have heard it enough in sermons!

Now back to my grandmother’s painting. Since I have inherited it, I have wondered about the identity of those people. Why did this painting pull at my heart?

The other day I was trolling the family tree on ancestry. I was working through the material side of the family. I was tracing my great grandmother who died soon after giving birth to my grandmother’s twin brothers. Her father, my second great grandfather, was Rev. Daniel Shephard Campbell from Kentucky. Attached to his information was a painting showing Rev. Campbell, his wife, and at least two of his ten children. One of the girls he named Katie Marvin Campbell. She was my great grandmother. My mother was named Katie Marvin. One of the girls in the painting was my great grandmother, Katie Marvin.

Interesting things about families, things go around in circles. I sat for several moments and stared at the picture on the Internet of Rev. Campbell and his family. It was the same one that hung on my grandmother’s wall. The same painting I inherited from my mother. It was the painting I looked at for hours while “being still.” It was a painting of my second great grandfather, Rev. Daniel Shephard Campbell a Methodist preacher.

Not only do families have these connections and repeated patterns. They are a part of daily life. You cannot escape connection. We were created to be connected. We were created to be dependent if you want a stronger image. In the New Year, could we all depend on each other a little bit more and be more dependable for others?

One of the truths of a reciprocal life is that we are in danger when we decide to divide our lives into those things we can do ourselves and those things that requires God’s help. When we live depending on God’s presence in our lives, we become dependable people of faith and action. It is all about “what goes around comes around.”

That truth will either cause you to be grateful or to duck!