Ah, those skeletons: Dealing with difficult family stories

Digging in the dirt
Stay with me, I need support
I’m digging in the dirt
To find the places I got hurt
Open up the places I got hurt

— Peter Gabriel, “Digging in the Dirt” (from the album, Us, 1992)

Be careful when you go digging through the dirt of your family’s past. You never know what skeletons you may find in your family’s closet! In this article, we’re going to discuss how we deal with difficult family stories when we encounter them, especially the stories that have been kept hidden. We’re going to discuss the impact of family secrets.

This article is part of a series about how learning the stories of our family history can create pathways to spiritual healing and wholeness.

Skeletons

When people undertake researching their family history, it is not uncommon to eventually come across a skeleton in the closet — a family secret — a difficult story that may have been covered up or supressed in some way.

We are shaped by our family histories, whether we like it or not. We are shaped by the good stories and the bad stories. We are shaped by the stories we know about and the stories that are kept hidden. The more we learn about our family histories, the better we can understand ourselves.

We are shaped by our parents, and so on…

If we are shaped by how our parents raised us, and our parents were shaped by how their parents raised them, then the events that affected our parents and grandparents’ lives have had an indirect impact on who we are. And, since our grandparents were shaped by their parents, then the lives of our great-grandparents have also had an indirect impact on who we are. In fact, we are indirectly shaped by the lives of all of our ancestors in some way or another.

Christopher Walken’s family’s skeleton in the closet

Academy Award-winning actor, Christopher Walken (Reservoir Dogs, Annie Hall, Jungle Book, et al), grew up not knowing who is real maternal grandfather was. The story of his family history was featured on an episode of Finding Your Roots, hosted by Dr. Henry Louis Gates Jr.

Discovering the stories of our ancestors can be a profoundly transformative experience; changing the way we see ourselves, our family, and our shared history.

Dr. Henry Louis Gates Jr.

Walken knew that the maternal grandfather he grew up with wasn’t his real grandfather, but his mother would never talk about who her real father was. Her birth certificate listed her as “illegitimate” with no father’s name recorded.

The show’s producers researched Walken’s family history and learned the truth about his real grandfather’s identity. He was a convict who had been arrested around the time of his daughter’s birth for selling stolen merchandise. He served five years in prison, and, shortly after his release from prison, he died, so he was never around to raise his daughter.

For Christopher Walken’s mother, the absence of her birth father would have had a strong impact on her childhood. And it would have shaped the person she became as an adult. And it would have had an impact on how she parented her three children, including Christopher Walken. And it would have indirectly impacted the person that Christopher Walken is today.

Walken’s mother refused to discuss the identity of her father. She would not allow the topic to be brought up. And she went to her grave not revealing the true identity of her father. She kept it secret. This was a story that was not told in Walken’s family, yet it still impacted Walken’s mother and her children. I need to underscore this point: even though Christopher Walken and his siblings knew nothing of the true identity of their maternal grandfather, his existence and the story of his life still had an impact on who they are today. Learning the truth helped Christopher Walken see his mother is a more sympathetic and even courageous light.

My own family’s skeleton in the closet

I discovered my own family’s skeleton in the closet. In the course of my own family history research, I learned some difficult truths about my great-grandfather. He was born in the midst of sectarian violence in Northern Ireland and that shaped who he became as an adult. He was a respected and venerated police officer who rose through the ranks to become chief of our local police force. He was a decorated war vet. He was acknowledged for heroic conduct during a local violent labour dispute. And he was also the same person who was partially responsible for the wrongful imprisonment of scores of innocent Italians during WWII. He was also a violent father. And he was likely a little too friendly with the mafia. He was all of these things. He was both saint and sinner. He was human.

The Chief and the King – The story of Police Chief Tom Brown and mobster Rocco Perri

My great-grandfather’s involvement in the Italian internments was never mentioned in my family growing up. It was a hidden family secret. The person that he was impacted how he parented my grandfather, which impacted how my grandfather parented my father and how my father parented me and how I parented my children. The things I disliked about my father took on a new sympathetic framing for me as I learned more about my father’s childhood and his father’s childhood and his grandfather’s childhood. I was able to see all of them as the flawed, imperfect human beings that they were, all trying to do the best they could in the circumstances of their lives.

Family Secrets

Family secrets can create invisible emotional prisons that bind us up behind emotional bars that we cannot see. We may stumble through life constrained by those emotional bars and find ourselves bashing our heads against barriers that we don’t even know exist.

“While keeping a family secret from the outside world may be advisable in some instances for privacy or protection, keeping secrets within the family can prove problematic. Here are five reasons why:

1. Keeping secrets can destroy relationships.
2. Keeping secrets can affect children’s lives.
3. Keeping secrets can cause suspicion and resentment.
4. Keeping secrets can create a false sense of reality.
5. Keeping secrets can cause stress-related illness.”

“5 Reasons Why Keeping Family Secrets Could Be Harmful” – PsychCentral.com

When family secrets are revealed, it can sometimes result in “a-ha” moments where something murky in our lives suddenly makes sense. It may create sympathies for what our parents, grandparents or other ancestors lived through. Where those family members may have had a negative impact on us, it may help us to view their lives with more compassion, and possibly even with understanding and forgiveness.

Revealing family secrets can also sometimes cause resentments for family members. Some secrets may be hard to learn about. Some family members may feel that those secrets should remain secret. But secrets are inherently unhealthy by nature. And those secrets can impact us like ghosts, whether we realize it or not. When secrets are revealed, even if they’re difficult to hear about, that revelation has the potential power to set us free from whatever emotional prison those ghosts created for us.

(Jesus said,) “…and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

John 8.32

Saints and Sinners

Once a parent or grandparent has died, it is common for us to form a distorted image of them that is either saint or sinner. If they had a positive impact on our lives, then we may remember them as all good and nearly perfect. If they had a negative impact on our lives, then we may remember them as all bad with no redeeming qualities. When in reality, good or bad, they were probably a mixture of both. They did some things well and some things badly. They were neither saint nor sinner. They were flawed, imperfect human beings, just like us.

Flawed, imperfect human beings

Revealing family secrets, even difficult ones, can help us see our parents, grandparents, or ancestors as more human — flawed, not perfect, not all good and not all bad. It can help us see them as having done the best they could in the circumstances of their lives. And when we finally learn about circumstances that may have been previously kept hidden, it can help us to be more sympathetic to the challenges they had to live through.

And, in that moment, we may that find something in us feels a little bit better, a little bit healed, a little bit more whole. You may find that you have a clearer sense of who you are and why you are the person you are.

From generation to generation

There is a difficult passage found in the biblical book of Deuteronomy:

“…I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents to the third and fourth generation of those who reject me, but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me….”

Deuteronomy 5:9-10

Some people read this text and believe that God punishes children for the actions of their parents. That would be a cruel God. I think such a superficial interpretation of this text is a misunderstanding complicated by issues of translation from an ancient language and ancient context into a modern language and context. I fundamentally reject the notion of a God who punishes children for the actions of their parents, or a God who punishes anyone for the actions of someone else. We are all responsible for our own actions. However, I do believe that we are often subjected to the consequences of other people’s actions, and that may feel like unfair punishment. In that sense, it may sometimes feel like we are being punished for the actions of our parents.

I believe in a God of love. Another way of interpreting this passage, in the context of this blog series, may be to see it as the voice of one who feels unfairly punished because of the actions (known or unknown) of their parents or ancestors. The struggles in our parents’ and ancestors’ lives do impact our lives and the lives of our children, and their children too. Negative experiences can impact families for as much as four generations or more, if they are not addressed and healed. Unhealed trauma often just perpetuates down through generations until it is healed. But when those struggles are addressed and healed, they can be transformed into blessings that can last a thousand generations.

This is part of an ongoing personal blog series exploring the relationship between family history and spirituality.

The post Digging in the Dirt (Skeletons in the Closet) appeared first on Scattered Wisdom from the Saddle - Rev. Ryk Brown.

When somebody asks you “What are your roots? Where does your family come from?” What is your answer? What are your real roots?

“You clearly identify as Scottish when your roots are clearly Irish. Why is that?”

I was asked that question by a distant cousin on my father’s side, while I was on a recent sabbatical trip to Scotland. I was exploring the spiritual significance of ancestry while immersing myself in the land of my ancestors, namely Scotland. My cousin is correct that, although we are both Canadian by birth, the ancestry we share on my father’s side comes from Northern Ireland, so we’re Irish. Right? It is also true that I identify the “land of my ancestors” as Scotland, not Ireland. Why is that?

Can DNA tell me my real roots?

It’s become popular to submit a saliva sample for DNA testing to determine one’s ethnic roots. My DNA profile says that I am:

• 30% Northern English and/or Lowland Anglo-Scottish
• 25% Scottish (Highland Gaelic)
• 20% Irish
• 20% Welsh
• 5% Norwegian

Shh! Don’t tell anyone that I’m really mostly English. I’ll have to turn in my kilt to the genealogy police! And, what’s up with the 5% Norwegian? I can go back ten generations and not find a single Norwegian ancestor!

Am I “clearly” Irish, as my cousin asserts? Are these my real roots?

Multiple ethnicities

Like many Canadians of European settler stock, I have multiple ethnic origins. Even if you, yourself, happen to be indigenous or an immigrant with a very clear and unified understanding of your ethnicity, if you go back far enough you’ll probably find some mixed ancestry. I don’t think there’s anything necessarily “clear” about roots at all. And the idea of pure ethnicity is fraught with danger.

How do we actually determine what our real roots are? How far back do we go to determine where our ancestors come from? Regardless of how many parents we were raised by, we are all born from two parents, four grandparents, eight great-grandparents, and a multitude of ancestors who may all come from one place, or who may come from many different places. Which ancestors determine your “clear” roots?

Why is genealogy patriarchal?

Who decided that your real roots come from your father’s side anyway? If you ask anyone where their family comes from, or what ethnicity they are, chances are that most people will answer based on where their father’s family came from. Too often we default to the paternal line. My father’s family originally came from Ireland, so, therefore, I must be Irish, right? What about my mother’s family? Each of my parents had two parents. They all contributed equally to the culture that formed me. Which ancestral line is my real roots? How far back do I have to go to figure that out?

Ethnic Ancestral Roots

Okay, let’s start with me. Any good genealogist will tell you to start with yourself and work backwards to find your real roots. I am Canadian-born as are both of my parents. If I determine my real roots by my parents’ generation, then my real roots appear to be fully Canadian. Is “Canadian” even an ethnicity?

No Irish here.

I have four grandparents. One was born in Canada, two were born in England, and one was born in Scotland. If I determine my real roots by my grandparents’ generation, then I appear to be half English, a quarter Scottish and a quarter Canadian.

Still no Irish here!

I have to go back to my great-grandparents to find my first Irish ancestor. In that generation I am:

• 50% English
• 25% Scottish
• 12.5% Canadian
• 12.5% Irish.

In my great-grandparents generation, my real roots are looking more English than Irish! So how can I say I’m Scottish?

If I go back even further, my Canadian great-grandmother’s parents were Scottish. Two of my English great-grandfathers’ families originally came from Wales and Scotland. So now I have four out of eight branches that are Scottish. That makes me actually half Scottish!

Is Irish really Irish?

Oh, but it gets murkier still! You see, my Irish ancestors weren’t actually Irish. They were Northern Irish Protestants, which makes them ethnically Scots-Irish or Ulster-Scots. Their ancestors originally came from Scotland, not Ireland. So, even my Irish ancestors were really Scottish!

And if you know anything about the turbulent ethnic and religious history of Northern Ireland, you’ll know that no Ulster-Scot Unionist would ever be caught dead identifying as Irish or flying the tri-colour flag of Ireland. They’d see themselves as firmly British and they’d happily shove the Union Jack in your face to prove it!

The only problem with identifying Ulster-Scots as ethnically Scottish or British is that, in census records, my great-grandfather consistently identified himself as Irish. There goes that idea.

Is Scottish really Scottish?

So, I’m looking more Scottish again! But what kind of Scottish? Scotland was geographically divided into two different ethnic groups: Highland Gaels and Lowland Scots.

Highland Gaels originally came from Ireland in the 6th century. Wait! So my Irish ancestors are really Scottish and my Scottish ancestors are really Irish?

Don’t forget the Picts! They were there first! They were ethnically related to the Welsh. And with all those Viking invasions, most Highlanders have generous infusions of Viking blood. (Maybe that’s where my 5% Norwegian comes from!)

Lowland Scots were Anglo-Saxons who were Germanic in origin. But there was also a smattering of Flemish thrown in just to complicate things even further.

My favourite Scottish history YouTuber, Bruce Fummey, is a bi-racial Scot with African roots, who says, “I see myself as Scottish, culturally…but I cheer for Ghana in the World Cup.” His sister identifies as fully Ghanaian, and his Ghanaian-Scottish nephew identifies as British.

Of course, English isn’t really English either

I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that those English ancestors I keep trying to ignore were originally an ethnic mix of Germanic Anglo-Saxons and French. And the French were a mixture of Celtic Gauls and Romans.

People migrate

People migrate, sometimes willingly, sometimes by force. When migrating from one country to another, how long do you have to be in the new country to be adopted into that ethnic culture? Years, generations, centuries? Even the countries we think we’re from may not be our real roots! Even “back home” people still “come from away.”

If I go back far enough, I’m going to have to start identifying as a Greco-Roman-Franco-Germanic-Celt!

And, if I go way, way back, like 60,000 years, then DNA science reveals that I’m actually African in origin! In fact, we’re all African in origin. All of humanity has its earliest roots in Africa!

Ugh. My head hurts. Maybe I should just be Canadian.

What is the difference between nationality, race, and ethnicity?

My best friend was born in Scotland, but raised in Canada since the age of 5. Is he Scottish or Canadian? He holds dual citizenship. He’s both.

For people who are also of mixed race backgrounds, the question of ethnic roots can be even more profound.

Nationality refers to citizenship. It’s geographic. Race refers to genetic characteristics. It’s biological. Ethnicity refers to cultural characteristics. Sometimes those are connected; sometimes they are not. When we ask about roots, we’re usually talking about ethnicity and culture.

The Canadian government says this about ethnicity:

“The United Nations states that ethnicity is broadly defined ‘based on a shared understanding of history and territorial origins (regional and national) of an ethnic group or community, as well as on particular cultural characteristics such as language and/or religion. Respondents’ understanding or views about ethnicity, awareness of their family background, the number of generations they have spent in a country, and the length of time since immigration are all possible factors affecting the reporting of ethnicity in a census.'”

StatsCan

So my ethnic roots have to do with the culture that shapes me and not about the colour of my skin or the country I was born in.

Academy Award winning actor/director Denzel Washington, explained this difference between race and ethnicity in a clear and helpful way. While explaining why his 2016 movie, Fences, needed to have a black director, he said, “It’s not about colour. It’s about culture.”

What about adoption?

What about those who were born into one culture, but raised in another? Is ethnicity determined by the family you were born into or the family who raised you? I have a friend who was born to Choctaw parents and raised by Scottish parents. Is my friend Choctaw or Scottish or both? Can we adopt the culture that we’re raised in? Can we be adopted by a culture that is different from our birth? Many adopted persons are drawn to genealogy (especially DNA) to learn more about their birth family. They may even meet members of their birth family, but that doesn’t negate the family they were raised in. Many adoptees feel a deep connection to both families. And, in the case of cross-cultural adoptions, many feel a connection to both cultures. What are their real roots? One, the other, or both?

What are your real roots?

Language, history, culture, and customs all combine to form our ethnic origin.

If your roots are mono-cultural then your ethnic origin may be clear…or is it? If you come from a mixed ethnic background then the math of your real roots is likely far less simple than DNA companies would have you believe. You have the opportunity to search your roots to see what ethnicity or ethnicities most connect with your soul.

I think real roots are not necessarily clear at all. Which ancestor(s) you identify with to determine your real roots is not dictated by the genealogy police. It’s a choice you make. How far back you cut the family tree to count the rings in the trunk, is subjective. When you have multiple roots (as many Canadians do) then determining which roots you identify with is subjective and personal, and will be different for everyone.

Am I clearly Irish? No. Am I clearly Scottish? No. But I feel mostly Scottish. The truth is that I have multiple ethnic origins. I have multiple cultural origins. I have multiple roots. Which of those roots I choose to identify with is based on what makes my soul sing. For me, that’s my Scottish roots. And that is a purely subjective and personal choice. When I recently visited my ancestors’ home in Glen Tarken, Scotland, I felt a deep peace in my soul and knew that these were my roots. (For more on that soul-nourishing experience, click here.)

In the end, we’re all adopted siblings in one connected family.

I guess I don’t have to turn in my kilt to the genealogy police after all.

This is part of an ongoing personal blog series exploring the relationship between family history and spirituality.

The post What Are Your Real Roots? (Evading the Genealogy Police) appeared first on Scattered Wisdom from the Saddle - Rev. Ryk Brown.

I recently returned home from a sabbatical trip to Scotland, the home of my ancestors. My teenage son, Ewan, joined me for part of the trip, where we had the experience of going home for the first time.

Home is a place we come from, not a place we go to. It’s possible to go back home, but how can we go home for the first time if we have never been there before? How? By visiting our ancestral home. Even as Ewan and I arrived for the first time, it felt strangely like we’d been here before. In our case, the home in question was the clachan of Morell in Easter Glen Tarken on Loch Earn in Highland Perthshire, Scotland.

My son, Ewan, had previously visited the graves of our Scottish immigrant ancestors in Puslinch, Ontario, Canada, not far from where we live. Our ancestors had been forced to leave their remote Highland glen in the 1830s. Today, their former home is a pile of rubble with fragments of walls here and there. Having stood where our ancestors were buried, I got to see the look of amazement on Ewan’s face as we set eyes for the very first time on the place where they were born.

The “Feels”

The hike up to Glen Tarken takes almost an hour from the nearby village of St. Fillans on the shore of Loch Earn. The hike is all uphill through forest, over streams, and though fields of ferns as high as our shoulders.

As we broke out of the brush and into the clearing of Easter Glentarken for the first time, I felt something stir deeply inside of me. In the genealogical community, we call it “the feels.” It’s an unexplainable transcendent feeling that comes from standing on the land where one’s ancestors once lived. There’s something deep and visceral in that ancient connection to the land of our ancestors. I don’t think science can explain it, but spirituality can.

Even though we’d never been here before, it felt like we were returning. Returning home for the very first time. Something deep in me felt settled and whole. Reunited with a source of my identity and my being.

Even Ewan felt it. I watched him as he stood still, with eyes full of wonder and awe as he sought to comprehend this amazing sight in front of him. Then he took off at a run exploring every inch of the place like he didn’t want to miss any of it. Not a word passed our lips for a long time as we just wanted to absorb this place into our being.

My 5x-great-grandfather built this place in the early 1700s. His blood and sweat were in these stones. There was something profound here. We could both feel it in our bones.

I Wish I Had a Place Like That

A friend recently commented, “I wish I had a place like that. I wish I had a place that felt like my ancestral home. But I don’t know where my ancestors came from.”

I didn’t know I had a place like this until I started researching my family history. Previously, all I knew was that my family came from the city of Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, where I now live. I knew nothing of our ancient roots. I’d never heard of Easter Glentarken. It wasn’t until I started researching one generation at a time, going back as far as I could, that I discovered this beautiful glen. And the more I learned about my roots, the more I felt like pieces of me, ancient pieces, were falling into place. I was becoming more whole. I was becoming more “me.”

Maybe there is a place like this in your past, waiting to be discovered. Waiting to be experienced. Waiting for you to go home for the first time.

From “Missing Piece” to “Deep Peace”

The world of spirituality is about deepening our connection to the Divine source of life. But life comes to us through our parents, and their parents, and all our ancestors. Without that knowledge, we may wander through life wondering who we are and where we came from. Like a piece is missing. Learning where we came from means learning more about who we are. And that can bring a deep sense of peace. Even if it turns out that some of the stories we learn are difficult, they can still hold the potential for deep resolution, deep healing, deep peace…and a deeper sense of identity.

If you want to read the full story of our Stewart ancestors who came from Glen Tarken and settled in Puslinch, Ontario, Canada, click here:

This is part of an ongoing personal blog series exploring the relationship between family history and spirituality. (Originally published on August 17, 2023, under the “Faith Matters” series in the Flamborough Review community newspaper.)

The post Going Home for the First Time appeared first on Scattered Wisdom from the Saddle - Rev. Ryk Brown.

This is part of an ongoing personal blog series exploring the relationship between family history and spirituality. (Originally published on June 1, 2023, under the “Faith Matters” series in the Flamborough Review community newspaper.)

I haven’t met a perfect family yet

As a child, there were days that I got along well with my parents and days that we fought. In 30 years of professional ministry, I haven’t met a perfect family yet. Most people grew up loving some aspects of how they were raised and resenting others. Those resentments, when unresolved, can lead to a lifetime of friction with our parents. But they can also impact our relationships with our life-partners and can even impact how we raise any children we might have.

Understanding can lead to forgiveness

In my last article, I mentioned that the more we understand how our parents were raised the more it can help us to be sympathetic and even forgiving about how they raised us (or did not raise us). I want to add a caution that in cases of abuse, forgiveness may neither be possible nor even safe.

Forgiveness doesn’t make hurt “okay”

Forgiveness is often misunderstood. The more accurate translation of The Lord’s Prayer asks God “to forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.” This compares forgiveness to a financial transaction. When I harm someone, they can sue me for damages. Then I owe them a debt to compensate them for the damages. If they forgive the debt, it does not remove the damage, it merely says that I have paid enough, and they are no longer going to make me pay for the damage I caused.

When you’ve paid enough

When someone wrongs us and says, “I’m sorry” too often we respond with “that’s okay.” But it’s not okay to hurt someone. Forgiving someone doesn’t mean that the hurt is now okay. It means that we’re no longer going to make them “pay” for the hurt they caused. We forgive the debt, not the action. We’re letting go of the need to make them continue to pay. That frees us as much as it frees them.

When we understand why people do or say hurtful things, it doesn’t make those hurtful things okay. Understanding doesn’t make a wrong right. But understanding can empower us to “forgive the debt” and stop making them pay for it for the rest of their lives.

I am currently on sabbatical exploring the topic of the spirituality of genealogy. As part of that sabbatical, I will be travelling to the land of my ancestors, Scotland, in order to immerse myself in my own historical roots while I read, reflect and write about the relationship between spirituality, genealogy, family, trauma and healing, personal and cultural identity. You can follow my thoughts on the topic here.

The post Finding Forgiveness Through Family History appeared first on Scattered Wisdom from the Saddle - Rev. Ryk Brown.

(Originally published on Jan 26, 2023, under the “Faith Matters” series in the Flamborough Review community newspaper.)

During the shutdowns of the pandemic, people were looking for hobbies they could do from home. Along with hiking and bicycling, genealogy surged in popularity. While stuck at home, it was easy to purchase a subscription to Ancestry.com and spend hours searching for family roots.

I’ve been a genealogist for almost 30 years. Like others, I used much of my pandemic home time to continue my research online and develop my genealogy websites.

I also began pondering the healing aspects of genealogy. Healing? Yes, healing.

Why are so many people so obsessed with learning their family roots? It deepens our sense of identity. In a world where people feel more and more disconnected, it gives us an extended family to feel connected to.

As my indigenous neighbours have taught me, I am the product of “all my relations.”

As much of our adult personalities are formed in childhood before the age of 8, then our parents or childhood caregivers have a huge impact on who we become as adults. If much of our sense of identity and personality foundations are shaped by our parents, then our parents were equally shaped by their parents, and so on. For good and bad. 

In understanding more about the childhoods of our parents, we may come to see our parents through more forgiving eyes as we begin to better understand why our parents thought and behaved the way they did. We see that they were the product of their own upbringings. The same is true for each generation we go back. The more we understand “all our relations” the more we understand ourselves and can sometimes begin to heal multi-generational wounds.

We also learn to see ourselves as the hybrid of multiple cultures coming together in one extended family. Just the way the world should be: multiple cultures living in harmony.

Many of my queer friends who have been tragically rejected by their birth families (often for misguided religious reasons) speak of their “chosen family.” In cases where relationships are broken, we still crave family-like connections. And that’s what the church was originally intended to be like – a place where broken souls could experience “chosen family.” The metaphor of family runs throughout our ancient religious texts because we all crave deep, safe, loving connections where we feel like we belong.

This summer I will be taking a sabbatical exploring deeper into the topic of the spirituality of genealogy. As part of that sabbatical, I will be travelling to the land of my ancestors, Scotland, in order to immerse myself in my own historical roots while I read, reflect and write about the relationship between spirituality, genealogy, family, trauma and healing, personal and cultural identity. I intend to blog and vlog regularly during my sabbatical. You are invited follow along.

The post The Spirituality of Genealogy appeared first on Scattered Wisdom from the Saddle - Rev. Ryk Brown.