Disclaimer: In some posts, I may reveal what some may call “dirty laundry”. We all must remember, no family or person is without fault. The same is so with mine. The objective is always to learn from the past, history. Not to repeat it.
Grace
I wish my childhood would have been as simple as it was with what I said about growing up with my father. But it wasn’t. That was just one layer of the onion. As I said before, my life felt like a play or production that had already started and I was just trying to find my place and figure out my lines. As soon as I was born, tragedy struck our family. My oldest brother, the oldest in the family, was killed while serving as a helicopter pilot in Vietnam. As I’ve been told, he was “THAT” Guy! Mr. Popular. Mr. Personality. Mr. Life of the party. He was “THAT” Guy. His death apparently devastated our family. As I grew up, I was told a many a story about him and his antics. My mom would also say that I resembled him in ways. Even though I never knew him, as I grew up, I missed him! I think I actually mourned and grieved him. What would life been like had he still been alive? What type of relationship would I have had with him? Would we be close? Would we hang out? Would he be “big brother” and teach me things about life? About girls? Would he have been a doctor like he aspired to be? What type of doctor? Where would he live? Would he have had more kids? He already had one and was already married. Would dad have been one of his patients? Oh if I could rewrite history.
Dysfunction
I don’t know for sure, but from what I’ve been told there was probably some dysfunction within our family of origin. It’s my humble and uneducated opinion that his death probably exacerbated this dysfunction.
There was already in place, most likely a very toxic environment. From what I was told, there was not a true avenue in which to express the grief and anguish that members of my family felt following such a devastating loss. Being that this was in the sixties and seventies and a Black family at that, visiting a therapist or counselor to unpack one’s feelings of grief and despair was not much of an option. We were always taught “Prayer was enough. Trusting God was all you needed to do.”
From that point, and as I grew up in this live action play, I always felt that something was just not quite right. Something always felt amiss. There were some major relationship disconnects between some of my other siblings. My family became fractured as people continued to grapple with this loss in their own and sometimes unhealthy ways.
I’ve also heard the saying lately, “those with the power control the narrative.” So as I grew and came of age, I was taught that certain members of my family were “wild” while others were good and I needed to be like the good ones. Unfortunately, there was no attempt to understand what grief can do to individuals.
To add icing to this toxic cake, religion and the Bible were used as weapons to condemn and manipulate said “wayward” individuals. God’s love and grace and mercy was not a major theme in our family. We grew up on a healthy dose of the vengeful “I’m gonna get you” type God. For me, I grew up believing God could not love me. My sins were way too terrible for God to even want to save me. I looked and acted like I was good on the outside, but in my heart I struggled with things. And because of my internal moral failings I was not good enough for God. This has plagued me for a major portion of my life. It wasn’t until the last twenty years or so that I began to embrace the love God has for me and that His grace is sufficient. Being perfect on my own doing is a myth. Its only by God’s Grace and Mercy that I am saved.
As I said, major rifts and fractures occurred that all but severed family bonds. The ripples of this dysfunction can still be felt today as cousins and great nephews and nieces have gone years without physical contact. Communicating mainly on social media if that. Family gatherings aren’t easy and only surface communication serves as holding some semblance of what family should be if even that is possible. Its heart breaking to me, and I probably spend way too much time dwelling on something that I cannot fix.
I feel sometimes that in my own way, I have contributed to the problem. I feel as though I give the impression that I know more than others. I rationalize it by thinking just because I don’t subscribe to the same toxic thinking and behavior, I think and function on a higher plane. I legitimately don’t want to be involved in a lot of toxic thinking and actions. I have a very loud and visceral response when I am placed in those situations. When I hear family members say they don’t like other types of people in our out of our family because of their skin color, culture, heritage or life style – And when they add that God doesn’t like them I really get upset.
“Christians? Or No?”
Sometimes, we Christians seem to condemn our close friends and family members’ relationships that are finally bringing them peace and comfort. It’s either because we deem their partner to be of the wrong race, wrong religion, wrong gender, wrong socioeconomic class or simply come from the wrong side of the tracks. We fail to see the whole context. The big picture. Our loved one may have endured one or several past negative relationships or situationships only to come and find a positive, validating and fulfilling and better situation with someone that we deem to be sinful, wrong and even abominable. We weaponize the Bible, take aim and fire off some of the most judgemental shots in the form of accusations we can muster up. We gaslight and proclaim we say this “out of love” in order to bring our wayward loved one back to the fold. However, we actually do more to convince them to stay where they are. We condemn them because of the peace they found, but never did anything to rescue them from the toxic, and probably abusive hell they endured and escaped possibly at the hand of some family member. We force them to make the choice between “them or us”. Us being, their family, church or friend group. When we push them in a corner to decide between the new love, acceptance and peace they have found or the toxic, abusive, manipulative false love that we offer them to return to, it’s no wonder they choose the latter. And there we are. Standing in judgement. Looking at them wondering why they are partaking, living, embracing this unacceptable (by us) lifestyle. At this point, we, the self righteous judges of the world’s fate, have decided that our next recourse is to withdraw, disfellowship, disown and disassociate with such a reprobate! They are no longer welcome back in our homes, our churches, our favorite restaurants, etc. After all, “they will need us way before we will ever need them.”
From what I’ve gathered, this type of family culture was largely the result of my dad’s beliefs and actions early on, before he found God. While he was “living his life” and “doing his thing”, he ruled his family with a hypocritical iron fist. He was very strict, but unfair. He would allow the sons to “boys be boys” but went total lock down on the girls. There was abuse of the psychological and emotional type and even physical type. However, this was all deemed as normal and the way to discipline a family. In the old time, husbands/dad’s were allowed to run their families and not necessarily be the wholesome example of God’s love they should be. They lived above the law so to speak. They practiced the famous philosophy of “do as I say. Not as I do.”
Grace is Amazing
All families have challenges. Each family member has their own personality and way of responding and reacting to said challenges. I would sometimes hear my mom say, “we raised everyone the same way. I don’t know what happened to them.” Unfortunately, there was little understanding at that time of how different individuals processed life differently. What makes things dysfunctional is when negative judgment and a lack of patience is applied to the situation. Also along with that, a healthy dose of shame in an attempt to manipulate people to get back in line or in their place helps fuel the dysfunction.
Grace on the other hand, is demonstrated when love, real love – 1Corinthians 13 love, is shown. We all need grace. None of us are perfect. We all have our weaknesses and short comings. I’m a Christian and I know that God has shown me grace. Therefore, I must extend that same grace to others. I will admit it’s hard at times. But I always have to remember that God loves me despite my failings. So I must love others in the same way. We all must! And in so doing we begin to realize just how amazing GRACE really is.