“I’VE been attempting to unravel the mysteries of my family.” So begins the story of Anthony Easton, as told in BBC Radio’s recent The History Podcast series “The House at Number 48”. The show follows Mr Easton as he goes on a remarkable — and, at points, almost unbelievable — journey of discovery, to search out out the “secrets and dark past” of his family.
It is riveting listening: in the midst of ten curated episodes, the story is fastidiously pieced together after which revealed, each to Mr Easton and to the listeners.
It is a narrative set against the backdrop of the Second World War and the deep tragedies across Europe within the mid-Twentieth century. While the show does in a roundabout way touch on the Christian faith, the themes of reconciliation, redemption, and restoration lurk just beneath the surface.
This could also be a specific story about a specific family, but, at the identical time, it speaks to a universal human longing: to know who we’re, where we’ve come from, and what makes us the people we grow to be — for good and sick. In listening to The House at Number 48, you don’t only get the sense that you just are discovering a number of the Easton family’s history: you might be also being invited to know your personal.
THE human longing to know where we come from isn’t any latest thing. St Augustine wrote of humanity as “restless” in its quest for meaning. Hundreds of years later, the Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl penned a book bluntly entitled (within the language of the time) Man’s Search for Meaning.
The popularity of programmes reminiscent of the BBC’s Who Do You Think You Are? and web sites reminiscent of ancestry.co.uk suggests that we’re fascinated not just by the sometimes murky family histories of celebrities, but by our own stories as well.
In an identical vein, ITV’s Long Lost Family reunites relations who’ve been separated, including some who discover siblings that they never knew they’d. Bringing all this closer to home, the event of self-administered DNA-testing kits implies that we are able to find out about our family background without leaving our sofas. The quest for meaning has never been more accessible.
ALL of this has plenty to say each to those that profess the Christian faith and to a society that’s increasingly dislocated from the Christian story. One of the Church’s fundamental beliefs is that, through baptism, we’re welcomed right into a latest family. Think of the words within the Common Worship rite: “We welcome you into the fellowship of religion; we’re children of the identical heavenly Father; we welcome you.”
Those who’ve been baptised now belong to 2 families: our biological family and our Christian family. While one may fade over time, the opposite will last for ever. Joining a latest family may be a terrific comfort for those whose experience of earthly families has been difficult or complicated — although that isn’t to say that the family of God can’t be complex, either. But to hitch God’s family is to be told that we’re loved, that we were created for a purpose, and that we now have a spot in his Kingdom.
THE most up-to-date public example of this got here in 2016, when the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, discovered that his biological father was not, as he had believed for 60 years, Gavin Welby, but Sir Anthony Montague Browne (News, 8 April 2016). Despite the massive shock this will need to have presented, Archbishop Welby succinctly articulated a deeper sense of belonging: “I do know that I find who I’m in Jesus Christ, not in genetics, and my identity in him never changes.”
Going further, he reflected on the query that he had been asked at his inauguration service: “Who are you?” Looking back, he said: “I responded, ‘I’m Justin, a servant of Jesus Christ, and I come as one looking for the grace of God to travel with you in his service together.’ What has modified? Nothing!”
THE growing interest in checking out who we’re and where we come from presents a chance for the Church to say something positive to an anxiety-riddled society. It is entirely possible to see this as a conversation-starter for unpacking our human need for connection, for family, and for purpose; after which articulate the reality that we are able to find this stuff truly fulfilled only in God.
In certainly one of his addresses in The Weight of Glory, C. S. Lewis (perhaps constructing on St Augustine’s famous quote about restlessness, “You have formed us for yourself, and our hearts are restless till they find rest in you”) spoke of how all those other places where people searched for meaning and connection were simply reverberations of God: “They are usually not the thing itself; they’re only the scent of a flower we now have not found, the echo of a tune we now have not heard, from a rustic we now have not visited.”
Like Anthony Easton, we are able to go on a journey to learn more about our family, but, in doing so, we may discover where we now have come from but still without fully knowing who we’re. This missing piece of the puzzle may be found only after we turn to God, who loves us and knows us at our deepest level of being (1 Corinthians 8.3).
Besides being fascinating listening, “The House at Number 48” is a reminder of something much deeper. All of us seek to know who we’re. To answer that query, people often turn to their ancestry, their careers, or their experiences. These are undoubtedly all a part of what makes us who we’re. But they don’t tell us where we actually come from, nor where we’re really heading. Only God can do this.
The Revd James Dwyer is the Vicar of Flackwell Heath and Area Dean of Wycombe, within the diocese of Oxford.
To take heed to the History Series podcast “The House at Number 48”, visit BBC Sounds.
