Embracing the Traditional and Non-Traditional

Oh, the comforts of tradition.  I welcome them, I love them and I feel safe in them.
Oh, the refreshment of non-tradition.  I am free, I love the unknown and look forward to the ride.

Oh, the comforts of tradition.  I welcome them, I love them and I feel safe in them.
Oh, the refreshment of non-tradition.  I am free, I love the unknown and look forward to the ride.

I don’t know that the stark contrast between tradition and non-tradition (for lack of a better word) hit me as hard as it did this last Christmas.  My husband’s family is full of tradition.  I love it.  You know what to expect, you can anticipate what is going to happen (i.e. the great food), where everyone will sit at the table, etc.  Everyone is on the same page and there is great stability when you walk into his parent’s house to celebrate Christmas.
On the opposite extreme is my family, full of anything but tradition.  Christmas is never the same twice, you don’t know what will happen, you don’t know what you’ll be eating (although it will be great as well), you sit wherever at the table, etc.  Everyone gets on the same page in the moment and there is great freedom and a different kind of anticipation, one of the unknown.

These are values of our families, both wonderful and both incredibly different.  These are also values of the people around us, culture, politics and the church.  All wonderful and all incredibly different at times.  Because of marriage I have to choose to either embrace both or reject one or the other.   In culture we face the same thing as we do in the church. 

Doing the non-traditional is not always good, nor is continuing the traditional always bad.  Vice versa, doing the non-tradition is not always bad, nor is continuing the traditional always good.  I realize that we have to consciously and effortfully choose to discern and embrace traditional and non-traditional things.  Unfortunately we typically take the easy way out and just go with what we’re comfortable with.