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Pastoral Care Week Oct. 24 - 30 Peace within the family takes on many faces The following is the fourth in a series of five articles written by MUSC staff chaplains on this year's theme—Imagining Peace. The focus will be on imagining peace in the workplace, family, globally, and the inner-self.  by Chaplain Lynn Brown MUSC Pastoral Care Services For some families, imagining global peace is more attainable. Thankfully, NBC, ABC, CBS and FOX provide us with great examples of peace within the family.  Classic shows like “Father Knows Best,” “The Jeffersons,” “All in the Family,” “Leave it to Beaver,” “Sanford and Sons,” and dare I admit, “The Brady Bunch,” offer the media’s idea of family.  The major crisis of “The Brady Bunch” focused on Marcia getting a pimple on the night of the prom. It was a major struggle to find a peaceful solution in the world of teenage girls and their images. It was all about “Marcia, Marcia, Marcia.” The major networks provided an opportunity to laugh at ourselves and our family systems.  In reality, peace within the family takes on many different faces. In this article, we will look briefly at the face of adult, single or married children who become the primary caregivers for their aging parents. Juggling responsibilities between work and home with the additional possible agendas of activities of school-age children—soccer, choir and football practices, church, doctor’s appointments—it never ends. Peace, lies within making sure everyone is on time, making sacrifices and working together.  In families where peace is defined by silence, keeping secrets of abuse, domestic violence or addictive behavior, this peace becomes harmful and damaging not only to the family but to the individual’s spirit and should not be tolerated.  In these situations, discovering peace may result in finding it within the safety of people and places outside of the family.  Regardless of family dynamics, peace within the family is always a process. Family is a process of hope, of determination, and of finding the Holy within the unholy.  Family is a process of seeking sanctuary, a process of discovering and creating refuge.  May we all pray for our families and do so in a way that seeks a healthy and life-giving peace. Imagine peace within your family.  Friday, Oct. 22, 2004 Catalyst Online is published weekly, updated as needed and improved from time to time by the MUSC Office of Public Relations for the faculty, employees and students of the Medical University of South Carolina. Catalyst Online editor, Kim Draughn, can be reached at 792-4107 or by email, catalyst@musc.edu. Editorial copy can be submitted to Catalyst Online and to The Catalyst in print by fax, 792-6723, or by email to petersnd@musc.edu or catalyst@musc.edu. To place an ad in The Catalyst hardcopy, call Community Press at 849-1778.