Celebrating National Sibling Day (without getting sappy)

Tuesday’s coming. Yes, that’s right. April 10 is National Sibling Day.

• Sisters will send each other sentimental, heart-felt, emotion-filled greetings.
• Brothers will slug each other.
• Guys like me, who have only sisters, will avoid the sappy stuff. And since we’re not supposed to slug our sisters, we’ll post the digital equivalent of a punch in the arm.

All seriousness aside, I get along great with my sisters. We’ve always supported each other (um, I think), and that means letting them have the spotlight from time to time.

Are you listening, Felix Mendelssohn?

I’m a fan of Felix Mendelssohn’s music. Most people are familiar with his wedding march, having heard it butchered by some well-meaning church organist. My favorite is his fourth symphony, but that’s not the reason I brought him into this. (And my apologies to all my well-meaning church organist friends.)

Felix had an older sister, Fanny, whom he adored. They were inseparable. You have to wonder what it was like to have a kid brother who was performing and composing before he was shaving. Especially when you were a better musician and composer than your little brother.

That’s right. Fanny and Felix’s musical instructors thought Fanny was the more talented of the two. Even their parents agreed. But, hey, this was the early 1800s, and we’d have to wait a few more decades before female composers, performers, and whatever it is Lady Gaga does would be accepted.

But that didn’t keep her from composing. She wrote about 400 compositions before she died at age 41. Her brother, Felix, agreed to publish several of her works—under his own name. Only recently, in 2010, research proved that Mendelssohn’s Easter Sonata was not composed by Felix but by Fanny. [Source]

Felix may have deeply loved his sister, but he still took credit for her work. I know, I know, it was a different era. Perhaps her work, no matter how good, would’ve been dismissed had it been published under her name. But, c’mon, Felix, when the queen of England calls you out for having written her favorite song (it was on all her mix tapes), a nod to your sister who wrote that song would’ve been nice.

Give your brother or sister the spotlight for a change. Even the brother who gave you wedgies or the sister who told Mom it was you who shaved the cat.

And this applies to more than siblings. It applies to your brothers and sisters in Christ.

“Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others” (Phil. 2:3-4).