I come from a tenaciously loyal, overly-educated, (fairly) emotionally-intelligent family, at least on my dad’s side. My mother’s side brings a different set of gifts, though she would demur from naming any of them. Mostly, she’d agree that from that side of the family, we got her, and she’s more than enough. But my mom’s side of the family offers—in my experience—an edgy humor, a tenacity to confront difficulty and survive, an awareness of human need, independence when necessary and mutual dependence when possible. Because of this diversity of gifts, however, when I think of ‘family’ in these reflections, I tend to lean toward my dad’s side. Relationships have been developed there. I know that side better, more fully in foibles and graces. And that side of ‘us’ is tenacious about ‘family,’ educated into confidence, and intensely self-reflective…though perhaps less about emotional dimensions of life than we might be. A couple of us have explored extending our loyalty of ‘family’ to others outside our origins, which seemed a natural and important thing to do at the time. Both of us have learned—are learning—that experimenting with ‘family’ is costly in all kinds of ways we never expected.
My own experience appears in several places here. Upon a startlingly intentional, intense spiritual friendship, my husband and I explored the notion of quasi-adopting two young women from our broader community, the daughters of this spiritual friend. We didn’t pursue it formally, in any means, but we did go so far as to craft a couple signs of covenantal belonging—a ‘swan’ ring for one of the girls, an anam-cara ring gifted by family and friends for the mother as a surprise on her birthday. In speech, the friend and I played with various family titles of affection and commitment, some intimate nicknames and others more formal role names—partner, and the like. As each of us grew in the companionship of the other, none of these had staying power except now, perhaps, companion. While this mother and I have little to no contact anymore, I will probably always count her as a companion. Her impact on my life was at archetypal and spiritually-intimate levels. She’ll always be a part of me—who she was then will always companion me—even if I never see or talk to her again. But none of the ‘titles’ or nicknames we explored remains.
I remain aware of the costs, however. The explorations in this fashion made it difficult for us to allow each other room to grow. We became overly dependent, overly focused upon one another. Our understandings of who we were, with attempted solidity in nicknames or roles, grew ever more inaccurate and disparate from each other. Neither of us could track this disparity of trajectories to see what was happening, though sustaining presence with one another grew increasingly difficult, to the point of impossible. Our experiment of inclusive-familial ties failed to sustain cohesion, regardless of our overt intentions. Both of us knew the words we had said, intentions we had shared, but the friendship—as it was—came to an end, decisively if gently. I still hold her in my mind with a sense of affection, but confirmation has come again and again that this was the healthy path of new life—dissolution of covenantal belonging, as we had crafted it together. One of the most costly things was relinquishing this tenacious understanding of ‘family’ we had professed between us. We were ‘family’ for a time. We are no longer. Given my tenacious loyalty about ‘family,’ I still cringe when I acknowledge that poignant truth.
Another in my family has explored extending herself and her ‘family’ to include a quasi-adopted daughter. The others in the family, though they need not have, accompanied them both in this decision and welcomed this someone new as ‘family.’ At a time of a wedding, even the extended family of aunts, uncles, and cousins welcomed this new ‘daughter’ into the fold as ‘family.’ Nothing legal, but a couple things formal, between those in attendance. This was a beautiful signal of extending the ‘tribe,’ I thought. This was ‘family’ at its best.
Until it wasn’t. Fundamental disagreement—by which I mean disagreement about the fundamental underpinnings of the relationship, like trust, intimacy, vulnerability, and more—now tears at the fabric of the ‘family’ welcome. The strongest link that had invited the young woman in no longer holds, at least in the same way. The rest of us are now perplexed about how to honor our loyalties to family. Are we ‘family’ or are we not? Does that change our behavior? Should it? And the quasi-mother struggles now against her own convictions, her sense of integrity, her need of health and more. What is the healthy course of action for her, when her ‘daughter’ transgresses in a way she finds untenable? As seen from the outside, here, she is bound by the archetypal frame of ‘motherhood’ whether she wants it anymore or not. Using the frame of ‘family’ has been costly, for all of us.
I’m of a mind that the experiments have been extraordinarily valuable, however. I have ultimately more respect for the archetypal ‘hold’ of ‘family of origin’ relationships than I ever used to—father, mother, sister, brother, husband, wife. There is something completely unconscious but exacting about these relationships—these roles—such that any who venture into relational explorations, innovations, needs to respect them in compensatory ways. In ways beyond cognitive awareness or expectation.
In a similar vein, I have much more respect for the biological sway we bring to our closest relationships, a sway that will require tremendous over-compensation if we are to extend human awareness to lovingkindness—being kinfolk—across traditional-tribal boundaries in the future. What would the world be like if we really lived into the notion of a ‘human family’? A healthy family, I mean. One that functioned for the good of all, in provision of physical, emotional, spiritual needs, in growth of consciousness for deeper and deeper learning about who we are and who we can become in this gracious eco-system we call home? Is it even possible to consider a world that does not require some to lose for a few to win? Maybe not, but the biological impediments to such utopian ideas are, in and of themselves, huMONgous. The family tribal structure has existed for millions of years for good reason, not least of which is the survival of the fittest over sacrifice/demise of the unfit. Part of the learning here, in the end, is don’t mess with Mother Nature.
But mightn’t learning to be 'family' across non-traditional bonds increase our ability to steward our world, respecting Mother Nature and living in harmony with her? Mightn’t ‘messing with Mother Nature’ in this way be a path toward living in greater harmony with others, whomever they be?
In the big picture, I say yes, but in the interim, it feels so impossible. Growth of any kind is costly, but emotional-relational growth can be excruciating. To sustain family ties across non-family origins is requiring new thinking, new reacting, intentional compensation for biological-reactions toward greater goals of new-family-cohesion. Sheer acts of will, in other words, but acts for which health and new life must be the goals. Not any sense of ego-pride or regret for having chosen new family poorly, but health and new life. For my part, the path of new life and health required dissolution of covenantal belonging, dissolution of ‘family ties.’ For my dear family-member-by-marriage, confronting the archetypal power of the Mother-Daughter bond? Time will tell what brings new life for her, for them both in the crucible of growth.
Maybe experimenting with ‘family’ like this is one of the new, best vehicles for the development of greater human awareness, regardless of whether cohesion remains or not. Maybe decades from now, more of us will know how to welcome even more of us into healthy family functioning, even if just for a time. For me, for now, however, I’m done experimenting with the names-roles-category of family. I choose instead a broadly defined notion of companionship. We need not be family to share a family dinner, after all. We may share bread with any who come to our table, for as long as it’s healthy for them to remain there.
No comments:
Post a Comment