In 1949, Margaret Wise Brown, author of Goodnight Moon, published The Important Book. In it, she talks about everyday items and the things they can do, but begins and ends each little snippet with the item's most defining attribute.
We decided to try something similar at our family meeting as a way to encourage and build family culture. We read the story together, then wrote each person's name at the top of a paper. I suggested to everyone that the most important thing about each one of us is that we are known and loved by each other and by God. So that went at the top of each page. Then, we came up with ideas for each member of the family about what else we appreciate about that person. After we finished, we read everything on the list, beginning and ending with, "(But) The Important thing about _______ is that he/she is known and loved by us as his/her family and by Jesus. It's a work in progress, and we need to pull these out again to add to them, but I wish I could have captured the smile on each of my kids' faces as we read down that list.
Last week I went on a date with my middle to a local donut shop. As we sat at the big windows munching on pure concentrated sugar (his donut was covered in what else but Fruity Pebbles), I asked him, "What is something you are good at?" I thought he'd say soccer, or throwing frisbee. Instead, he said one of the things we had written on his Important Thing list months ago: "I am friendly. I can talk to anyone."
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