Families Forever
Sermon by Stephen D. Edington, May 10, 1998
About three or four years ago the social and political commentator, Barbara Ehernreich, authored a rather provocative Time Magazine essay which was titled "Oh Those Family Values". I thought I'd open today's sermon with it because it speaks so well to the often highly conflicted attitudes we as a culture or society are taking toward the family at present. This is a brief selection from what she had to say:
"Theoretically, and sometimes actually, the family nurtures warm, loving feelings, uncontaminated by greed or power hunger. Within the family, and often only within the family, individuals are loved 'for themselves', whether they are infirm, incontinent, infantile, or eccentric... At best the family teaches the finest things human beings can learn from one another--generosity and love. But it (can also be) where we learn nasty things like hate and rage and shame... Americans act out their ambivalence about the family without ever owning up to it. Millions adhere to creeds that are militantly 'pro-family'. But at the same time millions flock to therapy groups that offer to heal the 'inner child' from damage inflicted by family life. Legions of women band together to revive the self-esteem they lost in supposedly loving relationships and to learn to love a little less. We are all, it is often said 'in recovery'. And from what? Our families in many cases."
I have a certain list of sermon topics which I place in a category called: "You've Got To Be Kidding"; or sometimes I call it the "Fools Rush In" genre of sermons. Its one of those ones where you know you're walking into a mine field before you even take the first step. Knowing what I do about many of the life stories and pathways that have brought a good number of you here, I also know that invoking a topic such as "family" calls up a wide range of thoughts, emotions, and memories which are reflective of what Ms. Ehrenreich herself observes.
For many of you, some of your most cherished thoughts and feelings derive from your family of origin and/or the family of which you are a part today. They were and are places where you're loved for yourself and where you were and are taught those "finest things that human beings can learn from each other--generosity and love." For others, the term evokes memories and feelings which are not near as positive, or recalls unresolved conflicts and continuing tensions. As Ms. Ehrenreich also points out, families can be places where we learn things like "rage and shame." I would guess that most of us experience some mix of the many variables that a term like "family" calls forth. And I figure that if I'm going to go the "fools rush in" route with a sermon on family, then why not go the whole nine yards and do it on Mother's Day. What I'm really trying to say, by way of introduction here, is that to speak of the meaning of family, and of both the healthy and less-than-healthy ways in which family life plays out, is to raise an issue which we each and all cannot help but take personally. So, with that understanding, let us proceed.
With respect to the sermon title I've chosen, there is no escaping the reality of family. In the early 1970's a radically minded psychiatrist named David Cooper authored a book called The Death of the Family. His book was just one of a genre of literature from that period which held that the traditional family structure had outlived its usefulness, or was actually causing more harm than good to human beings, and needed to be replaced by other kinds of social units--like communes of one type or another--through which we would form our primary relationships. But what was being heralded as a revolution with respect to the family has turned out instead to be an evolution over the past generation or two. While only 10-15% (depending upon whose figures you use) of American families are of the traditional father at work, mother at home with the kids variety, the families with which I'm familiar are not what I'd call radically different from the quite traditional one in which I grew up. The roles of family members have significantly changed, and they sure seem one heck of a lot busier than the one in which I grew up, but that hardly constitutes a radical revolution. I'm convinced that as long as there are human beings, there will be families forever.
So, in order to get a more of a focus on a very broad subject I'll speak to three areas this morning: First, I want to look at some of the needs and expectations we bring to both the families in which we are raised and the ones we attempt to create, and how we deal with the reality that those expectations will not always be completely fulfilled. I then want to briefly look at what is the latest in a number of attempts to co-op the very term "family" in the service of a narrow-minded, and largely homophobic, political agenda via an organization called "Focus on the Family". Among the various organizations that make up the religious right "Focus on the Family" is rapidly becoming the most powerful one. Then I want to close by suggesting ways in which we can truly be a welcoming congregation for the variety of family structures and family needs that are in our midst here.
As for our expectation of a family, when I conduct a Service of Naming and Dedication of a Child--as I've done many times here in the course of my ministry--I usually introduce it with these words:
"Each human life is bound with others, and this is especially true within the family. It is here that each person is shaped and formed by all the interactions of thought, of affection, of act, and of word. In the relationships of family we receive our sense of worth and personhood, our sense for what is right and wrong, our feeling of who we are and what our unique place in this world is."Those words always sound so "right" in a setting with (usually) both parents holding an infant or young child, the sponsors or godparents at their side, and their larger circle of extended family and friends sitting in the pews just in front of them. They must sound right and proper since I've had a lot of people tell me over the years how meaningful they've been and how they've struck a responsive chord with them. Its always good to hear that.
I'm also aware that when I look at what I'm actually saying with these words, I am asking one heck of a lot of a very human and often fragile institution: To shape and form a person by all the interactions of affection, act, and word. To be the place where one receives his or her sense of worth and personhood, their sense of right and wrong, their feeling of who they are and what their unique place in the world is. This is what we expect of our families, in addition to their providing for the more material and functional needs of life. Its not only children towards which such expectations are directed. Even for adults the family remains that basic unit to which we look for acceptance, support, personal affirmation, respect, and trust.
The family is also the most human of our human institutions, meaning that it is directly subject to both the best and worst of human beings. Some of us have come out of family settings where can primarily feel gratitude that these kinds of needs and expectations were to a large degree fulfilled. Perhaps others of us are looking for ways to come to terms with the fact that they were not--or are looking for ways to forgive those who were either unable or unwilling to be about the meeting of those needs.
In a book called Traits of a Healthy Family Peter Collier observes:
"Your family is what you've got...It's your limits and your possibilities. Sometimes you'll get so far away from it you'll think you're outside its influence forever, then before you figure out what's happening, it will be right beside you, pulling the strings. Some people get crushed by their families. Others are saved by them."Crushed, saved, or some of both, Mr. Collier makes a very wise observation in noting that your family of origin is something you never completely walk away from; and this brings up what I consider to be the greatest irony in terms of what is needed or expected from one's family of origin. One's family of origin--however constituted, and however weak or strong, functional or dysfunctional, crushing or saving--is the institution, the social unit, against which or in the face of which, we define ourselves and take responsibility for ourselves.
I'll speak to this in a personal way. I grew up in a family where, whatever its imperfections and shortcomings, the positives far outweighed the negatives; and where I nearly always felt far more saved than crushed. But there also came a time when I had to say "no" to certain aspects of that family in order to become the person I was striving to be. I had to make certain value choices and certain life style choices that were not altogether consistent with the ones which my parents worked so hard and so lovingly to instill in me. I had to disconnect at one point in order to be able to appreciatively re-connect at a later point. One role of the family is to provide young persons who are coming of age a place to push off from; and that pushing off is not always, in fact it is not usually, painless; and never anxiety free.
Try this for an analogy: If you remember the lunar landings era of the NASA space program, you'll recall that in order for the astronauts to establish their own orbit around the moon they first had to swing around the so-called "dark side" of the moon where they were out of touch with mission control. And there was this time frame of uncertainty where those in charge of the mission on the ground didn't know for sure if they would establish contact or not until the astronauts were safely around the moon and into lunar orbit. There is a certain developmental phase where parents are in the position of mission control and the young people are swinging around the other side of the moon. Think about that if you're in the process of raising a teenager right now. I believe that each party is hoping--each in their own way--that a re-connection will occur. In order for the mission to be successful, both separation and re-connection had to take place. Part of my own growing process--as I imagine it was for most of you as well--involved separating from my family in order to re-connect. Its one of the needs we have of our original families, that is to say, a place to break away from in order to come back to.
To close on this point, then, families are very human and oftentimes very fragile institutions in which we invest a great deal of need, hope, and expectation. But however fragile, they are also resilient enough to survive human failings; and many times those who were victims of those failings still went to create healthy families of their own.
Moving now to the second area cited, it is our concern for the well being and healthy functioning of our families that also makes these concerns susceptible to politicization. Invoking the name of the family for political purposes is hardly confined to the political right; and neither, for that matter, is it always a bad or wrongful thing to do. Advocates for most any kind of domestic policy legislation figure their strongest arguments for whatever they're promoting is to demonstrate how it is "good for families" or how it will "strengthen the family structure." Sometimes they even get it right.
The politicization of the family becomes pernicious, however, when people's fears and anxieties about the strength and viability of the family are exploited in the service of a political agenda which draws an a very narrow religious ideology. I've done other sermons on the workings of the religious right, and it not my purpose to make it the main theme of what I have to say today; but I do want to take note of what now appears to be the ascendant organization within that arena as it goes under the name of "Focus on the Family." It uses the by now familiar (I would think) postulate that in order to be "pro-family" and focused on the safety and sanctity of the family, one must then oppose such things as any legislation that would assure the rights and safety of gay and lesbian persons, or that permits abortion for any reason. Their agenda is undergirded by a completely unabashed Christian nationalism.
The founder and leader of this organization is a Mr. James Dobson, and he was featured in a recent article in Progressive Magazine. At present, according to this piece, Focus on the Family has twice the active following as that of the Christian Coalition. Mister--you can make that Doctor--Dobson, does in fact have a doctorate in child development from the University of Southern California and can speak the language of family psychology, which he combines with his Nazarene upbringing to which he has remained devoutly faithful. I generally like the idea of having people of faith in the helping and healing professions. It can be a very positive phenomenon. Dr. Dobson, however, is another matter. He is quite clear on where the fault lines in our society are drawn. Quoting him:
"The moral crisis in our nation (is a) civil war of values (between) two opposing forces, representing the world views of subjectivism and Christian absolutes..." The goal of the Focus on the Family organization is to see that these Christian absolutes--as defined, of course, by Dr. Dobson and his followers--prevail over the world view of subjectivism.
It so happens that a secular based democracy in a pluralistic culture in fact does operate on a subjective world view. It operates on the premise, that is, that no one person or group of persons possesses absolute truth when it comes to the values and mores by which a society shall govern itself. This is precisely why we allow for a range of voices and opinions when it comes to how we are to be governed and by what moral assumptions that governance shall occur. But Dobson is having none of that: "We are instructed to storm the fortress of Satan's kingdom" he exhorts his followers in one of his recent publications; the "fortress of Satan's kingdom" being that very secular, pluralistic democracy that has stood us in more or less good stead for two and a quarter centuries.
The chief culprits of this "Satan's' Kingdom" are gays, lesbians, and abortion providers. The chief fear being played to is the perceived breakdown of the family. The connection, however, is never demonstrated. It really does not exist. It just an unexamined assumptions: Banish gays. lesbians, and abortionists from our society--and put prayers in our public schools--and somehow our families will then be just fine. The sad truth is that there are some very real social, economic and cultural factors that are working against the stability of the family right now: Things like young people escaping from their own unstable families and together having children they are in no position to raise; things like working mothers struggling to make ends meet while also trying to raise their children; things like easy and seductive inducements into the drug culture. Of course there are serious threats to the stability of today's family in America. What an organization like that of Dr. Dobson's does is to find a couple of target groups to pin the blame on, and then claim they are both saving the family and advancing Christ's Kingdom. The connection between the Christ's Kingdom they are calling for, and the simple love, humanity, and compassion demonstrated by an individual called Jesus of Nazareth is yet another connection I find myself unable to make or perceive.
In the face of this kind of perversion of both religion and politics, I believe it is a calling of people of faith--people of many faiths; and people of good will and compassion to affirm, value and support the many varieties of family that are seeking to find positive and healthy expressions and ways of being. This brings me to my third and final point about our being a welcoming and affirming religious community for the many kinds of families and individuals who have made, or are seeking to make, this their religious and spiritual home.
Whatever families may have brought us forth to this point, the fact is that we are all here now, coming with both the fulfillments and the frustrations those families gave us; coming with memories of them which we cherish or memories which are painful to recall. We need to be mindful not only of the families which are a part of the paths taken here but of the many kinds of families that make up the mosaic of our congregation. There are those who find much of their energies going into what I refer to in that Child Dedication ceremony and the "sometimes joyful and sometimes agonizing process of being parents"; and there are those who's family life consists of their enjoyment of solely one another; there is the single parent family contending with the challenges and the rewards found in that setting; there are same sex couples, some of whom may have children which they have brought into that union; there are those who choose to live alone and who come here for the larger sense of family which is present. There are family forms and shapes I'm no doubt overlooking, but which are just as welcomed and valued.
The charge I give to families in a Child Dedication is one that applies equally well to all of us as we share in this community: To be a place where we receive our sense of worth and personhood, our sense of right and wrong, our feeling of who we are and what our unique place in this world is. For we each and all carry these needs with us from the moment we embark upon life to the moment when we take our leave of it. May we continue to find amongst ourselves new and creative ways of living out this charge so that we each and all may move to greater and deeper levels of personal fulfillment.
Copyright © 1998 by the Unitarian-Universalist Church of Nashua NH. All rights reserved.
