“Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.” – Jesus, John 15:4

It’s a truism that there is no such thing as a perfect family photograph, especially when there are more than two people who need to look at the camera, pose just so and a dozen other variables. At least that is what I thought until Saturday afternoon.

I had decided not to organize the family portrait this time around. There are enough other people who are good at taking pictures and I had no interest in herding 20 people. But then there was this announcement about a photo followed by a general movement toward the garden plus some confusion around how to get the picture-taker into the image too.

All right all right I’ll do it! I have this thing on my Apple Watch that does a remote. So I grabbed a bar-stool and a book as my tripod and we made it happen.

What a great picture! Nineteen people and three dogs with everyone focused, posed well and looking at the camera.

Good for the heart:

More pictures and more about the day in another post. But I can’t say enough about how important it is for our grandchildren to be part of such Koinonia. Koinonia is that place where community and communion hold hands, where the kind of nourishment we receive from one another is what Jesus was talking about when he said, “People are going to know that you follow me when they see how much you love one another,” and “Come to me when you are carrying heavy burdens and I will give you rest.”

Rebekah, me, our daughter Naomi, our grandchildren – David and Beks and Geoffrey. Right in the middle of this generous, messy, fluid, open-hearted, noisy, honest, redemptive thing that happens when a family’s beating heart is not so much a meal together as it is communion.

“Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.” – Jesus, John 15:4