THE WELLNESS-FAITH UNITY

FWR Says: How Family Wellness Promotes Faith

Young families are completely confused by all the differences in the religions – beliefs and activities. They are too busy to try to figure religion out, so they don’t.

There is a simple way to figure out their own faith. This is simple but not easy – they have to have answers to the big faith question:

“What’s it all about?”

From this effort they see that faith is deeply personal; churches are less personal - organizations that promote certain beliefs and practices.

Families must get to the heart of things by their own answers to the big faith question.

The families find that faith is a matter of their choices. They must choose and decide what they really believe about life. This faith governs their acts. Fortunately this not a one time thing. Faith takes daily attention to make sure that the actions of the day fit their beliefs. Faith searchers can get help from the family itself, others and from churches. In this life-long process, they will have mountain top experiences but the daily discipline is a grind.

How can the Family Wellness Rainbow help? The Rainbow and faith have much in common. They are both holistic and for each day - effecting all aspects of life. The Rainbow has six big areas: Health, Relationships, Knowledge, Family life, Values and Faith. Holistic faith applies to the same areas of life. Faith, like Family Wellness is a total, daily matter.

FWR Says: The Family Wellness Rainbow can lead to daily and holistic faith.

WELLNESS TRUMPS MONEY

FWR Says: Family Wellness - The Only Solution to Our Money Problems

The family is in the vise-like grips of the financial leaders. The rich leaders (business, professions and governments) are totally financed by the middle and the lower classes (prices, fees and taxes) – their only sources.

The financial leaders profit using other people’s money. They spend first on themselves. After that, they spend to extract more money under the label of “You can trust us”. The financial systems are so big and so powerful, one wonders how the family has a chance to control its own earnings.

Here are some family survival ways:

I. Remember that the family can decide where it spends its money - cars, insurance, taxes, food, education, recreation.

II. Put whole family in charge of its money – everybody works and has say on the family budget

III. Lower standards of living - house, car, entertainment – delay major expenses.

IV. Insurance only for high risks - big deductibles

V. Only one family charge card - pay off debts

VI. Build a Family Fund - save 10% on all earnings

VII. Start a cottage industry - garden, barter services (electronic, home care, professional services) new products

VIII. Cut back on fancy electronic gadgets

FWR Says: Family control of its money requires drastic family actions

FAMILY GROWS WELLNESS

FWR Says: Wellness is to be found First in the Home!

Where else can we find:

* Unconditional love - forever
* Secure haven - whenever
* Fun, humour and faith
* Springboard for learning, career and service

All these are available 24/7 in the family that has solidarity. If it takes a village to grow a child, it takes the whole family to do the job - one or two parents can’t do it on their own.

Business, the professions, governments and the media are not interested in family solidarity. They actually promote family fragmentation. Even the “helping” organizations like hospitals, schools, colleges and even some churches fail to promote family solidarity.

The family wellness rainbow with its six colours shows the way to family solidarity: Health, Relationships, Learning, Total Family, Values and Faith. Each of these essential elements, when together, makes for family solidarity and wellness.

Family solidarity comes when the whole family (parents, aunts, uncles and grandparents) decide to work together. Each family can become consolidated with help from small local groups, community agencies and churches.

FWR Says: The family needs to regain the vision for its worth.

JUSTICE STARTS AT HOME

FWR Says: Family Wellness - Our Only Hope for JUSTICE

The character of our society is shaped by our respect for our laws. Sadly, our legal systems are confusing, primitive and costly.

Lawyers operate much like what stock brokers call insider trading. Lawyers make the laws then turn around and charge huge legal fees to families. The legal profession has a grip on our justice systems. They make crucial family decisions with little or no background in human relations. While many lawyers are fine people, their behaviour is shaped by the system.

How can a family protect itself from these archaic systems? Here are some ways:

I. Only families can raise children to respect the law – “We have rules. There are consequences when we break a rule. Without laws that are honoured, we have chaos.”

II. Avoid the legal systems at all costs.

III. Once in a legal process, settle don’t dispute – especially where children are involved.

IV. Work with the school, the hospital and the church to find consensus on problems.

V. Turn off media efforts that portray legal handling of sex, violence and
family problems.

VI. Find a trustworthy family lawyer.

FWR Says: There are lawyers who are fully honest and honourable – find one

FAMILY WELLNESS: HOME-SCHOOL TEAMWORK

FWR Says: Wellness Needed in Family, Home and School Relationships

Both the family and the schools have work overload. Too often dialogue doesn’t happen. Children’s learning suffers when parents and schools differ.

The family is burdened with too much work and fragmentation of family coming from money and social conditions. Schools suffer from cutbacks and community expectations to do more than they can. These are the main reasons parents and schools don’t always get along.

Both family and school need to remember that learning is a lifetime process, nurtured in the family and supported by the school.

Despite these conditions, families can still support the school by attending school meetings and finding agreements about homework etc. Schools need to remember that they cannot be in charge of a child’s learning process - that is a family role. Both families and schools need to recognize that learning comes more from experience than from teaching.

Both family and school need to shed any negative prejudices of each other.

All these challenges are beyond families and schools to handle by themselves. We need new groups that focus on home/school collaboration. We all need new approaches to home/family communications, new PTA roles and school trustees who remember that it takes a community to raise a child.

FWR Says: A persons’ life-long learning is moulded by home and school collaboration.

FAMILY WELLNESS AND GRANDPARENTS

FWR Says: Risks in good families - Grandparent Contacts

We know that some grandparents can have great influences on the character of children - for good or for bad. We also know that, today, there is often some distance between a family and the grandparents. And, we also know that today’s parents are so rushed they have little time for themselves without thinking about the grandparents.

There are some risks in all this. Parents can miss guidance of children. The children can miss important influences and lessons grandparents have learned. In earlier days, grandparents were close to families so that the children got benefits from six or more adults. Sadly that day has gone.

In the Williams family, there were obstacles to the children’s access to the grandparents. Distance was one. Religion was another - the younger generation had no interest in the church in which they were raised. Then there was the all too common matter of parents wanting to prove themselves – hence resenting grandparent contacts. This is close to tragic for both the children and the grandparents. For some mysterious reason this generation of parents has little regard for their own history.

Some tips for grandparents:

• Don’t back off
  
• Special events are always good
  
• Money can be used in personal ways

FWR Says: Each child needs to know his grandparents

FAMILY WELLNESS AND TRUST

FWR Says: Risks in Good Families - Trust

Here we have a tricky matter. Some folks are more trusting than others. You can have it and lose it. If you have it, it can grow with time and experience. How does it get started? Maybe an attempt to understand it will help.

Trust is acceptance and respect without knowledge. Trust happens despite lack of information. Trust therefore, is a gift to someone out of the blue. It just happens. Where it goes depends on the relationships and experiences that follow.

A newcomer was greeted into a closely knit church group. The sponsor was gracious as was the group. During a conversation with the sponsor, he pointed out that it would take time to get trust from the group. The newcomer was taken aback. He said to himself, this is an ingrown group if it cannot extend trust to newcomers.

There is a unique type of trust which is found primarily in marriage. It is a deep trust that stays trusting despite bad experiences. That kind of trust does not shy away from the facts. It lives on openness. If the facts are not good then there is either forgiveness or loss of trust.

From this we see that trust is a precious but fragile matter. It calls for much from the giver. The payoff is another person who becomes trusting – with both enjoying a new sense of security.

FWR Says: Trust starts with a lot of giving and risk - the payoff is big!

FAMILY WELLNESS AND THE COMMUNITY

FWR Says: The Risks in Good Families – The Community?

The family gets all its life from the community.

From taxes, we get: roads, police, fire protection, health care, schools, colleges, sanitation, and the military.

From business, we get: food, clothing, drugs, beauty aides, funerals, flights, trains, videos, TV, phones, casinos, entertainment and the internet.

From the volunteers, we get: art, music, drama, boys and girls clubs, YMCA, YWCA, sports (hockey, baseball, soccer, football), flowers, books, stamps and conservation clubs, churches, camps, service clubs, neighbourhood watch, seniors programs, and A.A.

From the above we seem to have three very big and different family resources: The Basics, The Human Services and The Quality of Life Resources.

Please note that quality of life resources come from volunteer efforts. In Canada, there are 165,000 non-profit organizations. One tenth of Canadians volunteer at least a half a day a week (Nine tenths don’t).

The quality of life in a free society comes from volunteer efforts. Most of our present human services originated by volunteers. The family that doesn’t volunteer needs to think about its quality of life and that of its neighbours.

FWR Says: A family finds its meaning and its wellness through community volunteering?