Family Litany

BLANDING FAMILY LITANY

 

Speaker:             Our Family comes from a proud and beautiful African people, kings, queens and scholars.

 

Family:                We will strive to carry forth this legacy.

 

Speaker:              Our family survived many hardships by holding fast to values of strong spirited, physical and mental health.

 

Family:                I will keep myself spiritually, mentally and physically fit and encourage others to do the same, for when I neglect these values; I dishonor myself and my ancestors.

 

Speaker:             We care about our family.
 

Family:                We will respect each other.

 

Speaker:             We are blessed by the presence and wisdom of our elders.

 

Family:               We will respect each other.

 

Speaker:             We care about the future of our young people.

 

Family:                We will support our young people in their development, and do our best to prepare them for the future.

 

Speaker:              Negative attitudes divide us and hinder family progress.

 

Family:                We will be positive and support each other.

 

All:                       Our family is rich in values – values worthy of passing on to future generations!

 

-Katie Blanding
1992                      

 

 

________________________________________________________  THE BLACK FAMILY PLEDGE By Dr. Maya Angelo   BECAUSE we have forgotten our ancestors, our children no longer give us honor. BECAUSE we have lost the path our ancestors cleared kneeling in perilous undergrowth, our children cannot find their way. BECAUSE we have banished the God of our ancestors, our children cannot pray. BECAUSE the old wails of our ancestors have faded beyond our hearing, our children cannot hear us crying. BECAUSE we have abandoned our wisdom of mothering and fathering, our befuddled children give birth to children they neither want nor understand. BECAUSE we have forgotten how to love, the adversary is within our gates, an holds us up to the mirror of the world shouting, "Regard the loveless" Therefore we pledge to bind ourselves to one another, to embrace our lowliest, to keep company with our loneliest, to educate our illiterate, to feed our starving, to clothe our ragged, to do all good things, knowing that we are more than keepers of our brothers and sisters. We ARE our brothers and sisters. IN HONOR of those who toiled and implored God with golden tongues, and in gratitude to the same God who brought us out of hopeless desolation, we make this pledge.

________________________________ Hey Black Child Written by Eugene Perkins   Hey Black Child Do you know who you are?   Do you know you can be what you want to be If you try to be what you can be?   Hey Black Child Do you know where you’re going? Where you’re really going?   Do you know you can learn What you want to learn If you try to learn What you can learn   Hey Black Child Do you know that you are strong? I mean really strong?   Do you know you can do What you want to do If you try to do What you can do?   Hey Black Child Be what you can be Learn what you can learn Do what you can do   And tomorrow, your nation Will be what you want it to be.

 

 

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One of the real challenges that we too often find in our contemporary, busy lives is finding time to be together as a family.  It is especially difficult to find opportunities to pray together.  And, if prayer, other than going to church on Sunday, hasn't been a family tradition, it can seem very "unnatural" to introduce it as something we might do together as a family.

The most important part of family prayer is the easiest to overlook - how we hold each other up to the LORD.  Even when we are not physically together, as a praying family, we want to pray for each other.  We may not share our faith; perhaps one of our family members doesn't pray at all; but one of us can talk with the LORD about that individual every day - sometimes asking for help, sometimes just expressing our gratitude, sometimes begging for the gift of faith for that family member.

Lord we thank you for the blessings of this day and for this time together as a family. We thank you for the hardships and the good times that we have shared on this life's journey.  Lord, help us to remember those who have so much less than we do (LOVE). Bless us as a family. Help us to continuously grow in love and care for each other.  We ask you to comfort and give strength and peace to those of us who are sick or struggling in any way.  Bless us, O Lord, and these your gifts, which we are about to receive from your bounty through Christ our Lord.

AMEN....