Perhaps heard around more than a few holiday tables this time of year:
“Good lord, how much weight has she gained since I last saw her?”
“Do I think he drinks too much? Let’s just saw his ‘one day at a time’ is going in the wrong direction.”
“Don’t get me wrong, I love him and all but don’t you think things are better when he doesn’t come?”
“Before this last election I thought she was pretty smart.”
“He lets that girl walk all over him. It’s pitiful.”
“If she brings that woman, her so called wife, I’m not coming!”
All this and more said by folks whose hearts are wondering why their family can’t be more like the family in the Thanksgiving picture they saw on Facebook. It was twenty-first century Norman Rockwell. Every single person in that photo was beautiful, educated, employed, and kind to animals. Why can’t our family be like that?
Well, there may be a picture on Facebook like that but there ain’t no families like that. We’re all flawed, wounded, and hard to understand. Gerald May, the late Christian psychiatrist and writer, said, “A good definition of a sane person is someone you don’t know very well.” In other words, if we limit seating at the table to sane folks, it will be an empty table.
But if we invite and welcome the ones we need to be there, the table becomes full again because the mystery of it is that we all need each other.
We need our crazy uncle. Not just because he can fix the dishwasher but crazily enough, we need his crazy to make us, us. He was put in our life to teach us something and if we shut him out we will miss it. We will become a little more unbalanced ourselves because we didn’t figure out a way to make him a part.
Sure there are people who are not just irritating but hurtful and we need boundaries. But, compassion gives us the strength to resist dancing to their tune and it helps us hear and dance to our own.
It’s called life. It’s messy. But it is what it is and when we receive it as it is becomes deep, rich, and full. Real.
Happy holidays!
Oh, and a glass of wine may help.