There are places that only the bravest venture into.
Alexander Pope, in his 1708 piece An Essay on Criticism:
“Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.”
Shakespeare wrote about fools in many of his plays, and in
a lot of literature; they are the ones who speak the truth.
Because of the place they occupy at the Royal Court, Fools
and Jesters can say what no one else dare say, since they live both inside and
outside the system.
Families, they warn you in seminary, are dangerous
territory. One of the first things they teach you is to NOT try to be the
minister in your own family. It will never work. To your Mom you will always be
the kid who cut their teeth on the coffee table, to your Dad you will be the
who kept borrowing tools and not putting them back, etc.
There is always more to a family than you can see on the
surface. People, myself included, have blind spots around their own family, and
there are hidden influences everywhere.
Some of you may remember that I have shared a
little youtube video called “Friedman's Theory of Differentiated Leadership
Made Simple”[1] with
the Board and one of last year’s Church council’s meeting. Edwin Friedman was a
Rabbi and a family therapist who studied family systems theory. Friedman
studied under a man called Murray Bowen, who was an American psychiatrist and
one of the pioneers of family therapy, systematic therapy and in the 1950’s
began working on a systems approach to family dynamics.
In the last two years I have attended trainings on family
systems theory with a student of both Bowen and Friedman, called Bob Diddle. He
and a small group of students of Bowen and Friedman have a formed a group to
continue the academic study of their teachers. These students have been meeting
for over 30 years, and many of them knew and studied with Murray and Ed.
I’m going to share Friedman’s version of Cinderella with
you.
The moral of the story is that all the world loves a
charmer, but nobody remembers the responsible person’s birthday.[2]
Here are some of the questions that are razed by Friedman
by way of his re-telling of Cinderella.
How did Cindy’s Stepmother get herself stuck with all this
responsibility? What is it in her own past that got triggered by this doting
widower who was going to be rarely home, who was going to stick her with
raising his kid?
What is it that the stepmother is always considered “mean”
and the natural father always “nice”?
Does Cindy’s stepmother have a right to treat her as if she
were her own child?
Is discipline more important than affection in parenting?
What does the popularity of the original, romantic version
say about society’s avoidance of dealing with issues?
As Irish novelist Maeve Binchy wrote “Everybody is a hero
in their own story if you just look.”
I’d like to invite you for a moment into reflection about
your own story. How might one of your siblings or cousins tell your story
differently? How about one of your parents?
What Bowen and Friedman are inviting you to do is to look
at the story of your family from a systems perspective. They want you to ask
questions like how does your birth order effect the way you walk in the world.
Are you the oldest son in the family and also the
first-born? Then chances are pretty good you’re going to be in some kind of a
leader position your whole life, because it’s what you learned as a small
toddler. Are you the oldest girl in your family? Well, then you’re probably a
Mom figure. Are you the oldest girl, but the second born? You’re probably still
going to be a Mom figure.
Are you the youngest? Chances are you’ll take bigger risks,
see your oldest sibling as a stick in the mud who cares more about
responsibility than fun.
I don’t agree with all that Bowen and Friedman put forth,
but it is a tool that can be used to ask questions about the way you navigate
in the world.
You may recall that I was in Oregon earlier this year, and this
was so that I could attend these trainings on family systems.
While the people I met there were very nice, the system
sort of put a burr under my saddle.
And right now, because you’re the middle child, you’re
wondering if once again, you’ve been over looked and forgotten. Don’t worry,
you haven’t been.
So back to Oregon…
There was something that just sort of bugged me about the
system. And then one presenter said “The ideal marriage is between an oldest
son and a youngest daughter who has older brothers.”
Now I want you to know that I had been a very good student
up to that point.
I was in a room with 26 other ministers at this workshop.
All of them were various flavors of Christian; all of them heterosexual and all
of them white as the day is long.
Putting a multi-racial, gay, non-Christian minister who
believes, perhaps somewhat radically in a Love that transcends all boundaries,
into a room like this is pretty much like setting a kitchen timer.
Eventually, there’s going to be a very loud ding.
“The ideal marriage is between an oldest son and a youngest
daughter who has older brothers.”
This was the moment when I went “Uhm, what?”
And there you have three days of responsible studentship,
sunk in a moment. Foolishly, or perhaps with a Machiavellian genius that I do
not possess, the presenter said “Do you have a question, Joe?”
“The best possible marriage for whom?” I asked. “For a man
who doesn’t like to be challenged? For two people who want to blindly perpetuate
the patriarchy?”
Like all tools, the Bowen/Freidman theories have their
spots that they don’t address, but they can be a good at getting one to
consider the role you play in your own family, and how that role promotes or
discourages peace.
Peace in the family.
And once you take a hard, long look at your role, how do
you want to change your own behavior to promote peace with the ones you live
with?
Here are three simple examples.
Can you stop
being the bossy older brother, and just try to be the older brother who
listens?
Can you be the
youngest sister who goes against the narrative her family has built for her and
clearly demonstrate your leadership style?
Can you be the
middle child who doesn’t keep score?
By better knowing ourselves, we are more able to become the
kind of people we admire. By questioning our behavioral habits, and figuring
out what’s behind them, we can break old systems of frustration and create
peace in our homes.
It’s a long journey, I know, but you’re on a journey
through your life anyway, why not make your journey that of an awakened, alert
and intentional person?
I know you can do it. I have faith.
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