Family

Finding common ground at family reunions
by David Batstone (from www.sojo.net)
Over the summer months many extended families gather for camping trips, beach holidays, or similar get-aways. The reunion can be a time for bonding and renewal of connection. It also can turn into an emotional train wreck.
SojoMail readers tend to be passionate about religion and politics. Funny enough, those are the very topics that can generate adversarial divisions at family gatherings. So for the sake of future family harmony and enjoyable vacations, I throw out a few reflections on reunion behavior.
I am writing fresh from my own extended family reunion - 19 members of my clan gathered on the North Shore of Lake Superior in Minnesota. It went much better than a family reunion at this very spot 25 years ago. We have all grown a lot.
Back then, I had just returned from two years overseas - one year working with homeless kids in Melbourne, Australia, and the other in theological seminary. Those experiences had carried me to new places in my understanding of faith and public action.
The "new" me did not line up well with the family traditions. My letters home to various family members while I was overseas suggested how much I was changing. But the reunion turned out to be the first time that we could be together to appreciate the divergence. I take at least 75% of the blame. I was young - still in my early 20s - and in the midst of establishing my own identity. So I was not looking to build bridges as earnestly as I was tossing missiles. I honed in on those areas where I had moved away from family’s beliefs. The reunion turned into an intellectually-alive event, but it was not without its pain and turmoil. As the years have passed, my family has learned to graciously accept the breadth of religious faith and political practice that we bring to a reunion. Mind you, we have not grown more homogenous; quite the contrary. But we now enjoy being together. That's due in large part to our revised expectations of what a family must be. To start, we no longer aim to argue each other into our own likeness. At the fated reunion 25 years ago, the family wanted to draw the drifting son back into the fold. I was not just wrong; I was at risk of losing my bearing. Resisting the effort, I aimed at "enlightening" them to my conclusions. Today we spend more time talking about areas of common ground. How we got into the war in Iraq is not one of those topics. So we acknowledge the disagreement and move on. The abolition of human slavery in the 21st century draws 100% support in the family, so much discussion about causes and strategies for social change takes place.
It also helps to deliberate on activities more than beliefs. For instance, describing your experiences at the refugee relief center at your church does not raise swords like a diatribe on immigrant rights. Sharing your experiences, or experiences of people who have touched your life, invites open conversation. It could very well be that a family member might try to dispute your experience with a political argument. At that stage, I find it helpful to say, "Well, that is not what my experience is teaching me."
The same goes for religious diversity. To use an example: Do not get sucked into arguments about whether Christians should do yoga. If yoga is your thing, share how your practice brings physical and spiritual benefits to your life. By and large, it is hard to dismiss a personal witness. Even if a family member does that, be secure in the fact that it is your experience.
Shifting gears, family gatherings also can turn nasty when individual members feel like they have no say in the agenda for group activities. The conflict could have as much to do with long-standing power dynamics as it does present day frustration. Instead of trying to convince everyone to, say, go fishing in the lake for the afternoon, it is far better to allow for clusters of group interests. Common meals and events have their purpose, but so does a flexible agenda for a range of interests.
Perhaps I should dive a bit deeper here. All families create relationship patterns, some healthy and some not so healthy. Once we leave the family and make our own path in life, we find greater freedom to change destructive behaviors or move out of roles that felt imposed. When we go back for a reunion, it can be troubling to find yourself slipping back to that condition you thought you left far behind.
If that keeps happening to you - and makes your family reunions miserable - think creatively about how you can avoid old patterns. Make intentional choices how you engage with the family, and frame conversations in a way that fits you. You do not have to feel out of control.
We live a real paradox. We have a free hand to write the story of our lives. But the truth is we do not start writing on page one, chapter one. We begin writing in chapter 13.
Perhaps you hate those first 12 chapters, and try to write your story afresh as if the early chapters didn't matter. But you eventually discover that the story does not make sense. Some people spend their whole lives confused because they don't know what to do with those early chapters.
Family is, for good and bad, an inheritance. Reunions can be a time to make better sense of the larger story.