First Unitarian Church

February 28, 1999

I’m going to begin with a monologue, a voice speaking from the past. My own voice, as a high school senior, about to graduate from Homer High, a small town high school in N. Louisiana. The passage I’m about to read could be words from my teenage journal. Certainly they were the words in my heart as I searched for meaning, for identity, for love.

"Have you ever wondered why you are the person you are, and not somebody else? I think about this all the time. The other day I saw one of these little sayings in the newspaper, one of those things they print just to take up blank space, but it jumped right out at me, so I cut it out and I keep it in the secret pocket of my billfold. It says: ‘We all have to play the game of life with the cards dealt us, so why expect a reshuffle?’

"I’m trying to do this, I mean accept who I am, but the truth is, I want a reshuffle. I hate being me. Take last week at the awards ceremony for seniors. You know what my awards were? "Betty Crocker Future Homemaker of the Year" and "Most Intelligent." I got the Betty Crocker award because of a test I took that asked you stuff like where do you place the dessert spoon when you set the table and how many stitches to the inch do you use when sewing silk. Like that’s the kind of thing that makes a good home. Really. I got the "Most Intelligent" award because all the people smarter than I am got better kinds of awards like "Most Popular" or "Miss Homer High."

"The most embarrassing award, though, was the one I got at Youth Fellowship two weeks ago. Would you believe, I got "Best Christian." Now anybody who knows anything about Jesus knows that he had one basic message, love others, and that’s the one thing I do worst in the world. I go around depressed most of the time, or mad. So how did I get "Best Christian"? I think its because I’ve never been able to get a boyfriend.

"And maybe because I’m so serious-minded. My English teacher, Miss Holcomb, she told me, "Marilyn, don’t carry the weight of the world on your shoulders," just out of the blue one day when I was leaving class, she touched my shoulder and said that. I’m not sure what she meant, except that she wishes I could be a happier person, I didn’t know it showed so much, how I feel inside. It made me feel even worse for her to say that, probably everybody sees how sad I am, I’ve been trying to be like a normal person, but when I look at my eyes in the mirror I see the sadness there, just like I’ve been hurt by something real bad a few minutes before, even if nothing happened, and I should feel OK, that look is there, like a permanent wound, or something. I wish it would go away, or I could learn to hide it better.

"Anyway, back to this saying I cut out of the paper. If I could have a reshuffle, what would I like? Instead of being smart, I would rather be pretty. For a girl, it’s a lot more important to be pretty. How else will I ever get married and have a home? And instead of being a leader and getting elected president of this and vice-president of that, I’d rather be popular. I’d like it if everybody wanted to sit next to me at the movies, instead of nobody, the way it is now, I kind of go in last, because I know that whoever gets stuck next to me will probably be disappointed, and nobody wants to be stuck on the end, so I take that spot. I wouldn’t ask for money, even it would be nice to have some, but that’s not the important thing, I just want to be a person other people can love. And so far I’m not."

What has been carved in. A lot is carved in that we never choose, never would have chosen. We don’t choose the raw materials, do we? We don’t choose the year in which we are born, nor the national and international events swirling around that birth. Were you born in time of war—or in time of peace? Were you born during the Great Depression or in a time of prosperity? Were you born when we all feared a nuclear attack, and we practiced crawling under our school desks, just in case? We don’t choose the cultural norms—the strengths, the limitations, the prejudices, the history--of the community in which we grow up.

Were you born in a small town in the Deep South, as I was? Or were you born in a ghetto in New York City? Were you born in East Texas, where the land is flat and dry—or in the mountains of Colorado? Maybe in liberal San Francisco, or in the conservative Mid-West. We don’t choose our brain power, our physical appearance, the color of our skin, our temperament, our aptitudes, our personality type, nor the people who bring us into this world—our family of origin. We all have to play the game of life with the cards we were dealt. Can we expect a reshuffle? Well, no. But we can learn to play very, very well the cards we have been given. We can learn when to discard, and what. We can learn to lead through our strength.

Galen Gingrich, one of the ministers at All Souls in New York, recounts seeing a TV interview with singer k.d. lang. She talked about some of the difficulties she has faced: being a vegetarian who comes from the heart of Canadian cattle country, for example, and being a lesbian from an extremely traditional culture. Near the end of the interview k.d. lang was asked how she arrived at her unusually well-developed musical texture and the surprising spiritual depth of her work. She answered, "I believe you are only as deep as what has been carved into you."

What could she have meant by this statement? Maybe she is saying that we are a composite of all the givens of our lives, all the experiences, all the people who have been a part of who we have become. For better, for worse. That life itself is the sculptor that brings the beauty to the surface of the stone. Does she mean that we gain depth through suffering, through struggle? Maybe yes, maybe no. That is by no means a certainty. We are called upon to make choices, to decide how we will respond to life’s vagaries. When we are children and so dependent upon others, our choices seem very limited. Sometimes economics seems to determine so much in our lives—it may determine whether or not our health care is adequate or whether we feel safe walking in our neighborhood. So do we all have an equal shot? No. Some people have more resources, both personal and economic. But we still have choices. All of us do.

How is it that some people seem to survive and even flourish in difficult circumstances, and others seem crushed by the burden of the givens? In her book entitled Transcending Turmoil, Donna LaMar, cites her studies of survivors of highly disfunctional families. Many of these were children who endured violence and sexual abuse. LaMar concludes that the pain and loneliness of these individuals motivates them at some point, even as early as four or five years of age, to make a decision—and she emphasizes this crucial time of decision-making—they make a decision to pull away from their families and preserve a part of their inner selves that they will keep intact. This commitment seems to last a lifetime. These transcenders, as she calls them, seek guidance, information, seek people who will support them as they reclaim their authentic selves. They are not content simply to exist. They grieve, they take risks, they work hard, and they move on.

What has been carved in from the family of origin is primary, is the ground from which we all come, but it is not all there is. There is something within us that reaches out for life, that affirms the reality of love, even in darkest times. We can do some shaping of our own.

But let’s spend some time now on how the family of origin does its extensive carving—both for good and for harm--and why it is so difficult to overcome those early influences when they are negative. Children, of course, learn who they are through the messages of their parents. When parents distort reality—for whatever purposes of their own—the child is faced with a dilemma. He can believe his own senses—what his own eyes and ears tell him—and maintain a firm grasp on reality; or on the other hand he can believe his parents and maintain the relationship, which he so desperately needs. To the small child, it is incomprehensible that parents have needs and wishes of their own. How could Laurel have guessed at age seven that her mother hated herself and needed her little daughter to be her confidante, her admiring disciple? Laurel only knows that her mother talks non-stop and rarely listens. Laurel feels invisible, and when she tries to break out of this dynamic, her mother calls her "cold" and "ungrateful." As a child gets older, she may challenge the family pattern, but will not be able to ignore it and still stay in the family.

Why would a parent see a distorted image of the child and not the actual child? Both in the larger culture and as individuals, we tend to project our dreams and desires externally, project them all too often upon our children. We try in this way to resolve our own personal conflicts, as in the example above with Laurel and her mother. We create myths, family stories, that will carry our anger, our fear, our loss, says psychologist Joyce Block. When we own only parts of ourselves, we in effect ask our children to take the other parts of our personalities, in order to contribute to a satisfying whole—but then each individual is condemned to living as just as a fragment of himself. So you have the Clown, the Hero, the Black Sheep, the Martyr, all in the same family, all needed to complete the family psyche.

I once knew a minister and his wife in another denomination. He was pious and she was sweet. Pious beyond words he was, and she cloyingly sweet. They had a two-year old that was an absolute terror of a child. He swore at people, he tore up everything in sight. And he bit other children and adults. There was no daycare in the city that would take him. His parents didn’t understand. They were literally at their wit’s end. They took the kid to a child psychiatrist. Then, interestingly enough, the minister came out as gay and left the marriage. The child no longer had to carry his father’s anger and despair for him. The mother no longer had to wonder why her loving husband seem to draw away from her. Healing could begin.

In an actual drama, the play is over, the costumes come off, and the characters resume their lives. But in a family drama, the stories are told through the years, the myth elaborated upon, and the characters in these roles may never question their part. Some roles are flattering, inflating, others are debasing. Thus the family mythology has the power to shape who we are, who we are not, and what we might properly become. Always, though, the myth is a distortion and a limitation of the personality.

In the fairy tale "The Emperor’s New Clothes," everyone goes along with the illusion that the emperor and his tailors project—until an innocent little boy believes his own eyes and declares to the crowd that the emperor is naked, that his magnificent new garments are imaginary. And do people welcome the truth? Not on your life. Everyone is embarrassed, as a matter of fact. The vain emperor would rather deceive himself than admit that he had been duped by his tailors. The spectators didn’t trust themselves, but allowed the authorities to tell them what to think. At the end of the tale, the royal parade continues, even though everyone knows it is a sham. This is the only way the characters can save face.

So breaking out of the myth is difficult, to say the least. Lots of forces keep you in your place. A few months ago I saw a powerful film called Celebration, which illustrated what can happen when a family member insists on shattering the myth. The scene takes place over a 24-hour period, the birthday celebration of the wealthy family patriarch. His elegant wife is by his side. The four grown children--all troubled--show up. At the lavish dinner, one of the grown sons surprises everyone by revealing during his toast to his father, that he and his twin sister had been sexually abused by the father. The sister had recently committed suicide. But everybody, including the mother, denies the truth and maintains the family myth, that the father is a good and loving father. The son is passed off by the mother as being mentally unstable. The guests go off to dance as if nothing happened. Over and over again the son speaks out, and he is rebuffed. One of his brothers—a brutal, nasty man--beats him up and leaves him tied to a tree. Then a discovery is made—a note hidden by the twin sister before she died—a note which makes the sexual abuse clear beyond a doubt. The family members then reject the father and let him know he is not welcome when he arrives as usual at the breakfast table. He breaks down and confesses his guilt. The other family members begin to heal. The emperor has no clothes.

In my own family, we certainly had a mythology, and we took our parts. My grandfather was the good patriarch, whom nobody questioned. Nevermind that he was bound to rules and not to love. He was Jehovah God, with his long prayers and condemnation of anything that was fun. My grandmother was the martyr, the suffering saint. My sister was the family clown, and my brother the lost child. My father was the bad sheep, with his interest in women and strong drink. I was the family hero, the solid, the stable one, the moral foil to my father.

I think it’s interesting how this family history still plays itself out in my life. Sometimes it’s positive and sometimes not so positive. For sure, I’m still the good girl—after all, didn’t I become a minister? But I favor men who are not quite grown up, who are rebellious and playful, like dad. I haven’t owned that part of myself, and so I let somebody else carry it for me. I knew if I wasn’t good all the time, the house would fall down. I still believe that. As the oldest child in a family of adults that couldn’t cope, I grew up being in charge of things. I looked after my younger brother and sister, if not by nurturing them, at least by constantly telling them what to do. I washed my father’s work clothes when he came in from the oil rig. I fed him and put him to bed when he came home drunk. It never occurred to me that there was anything I couldn’t handle. I have a kind of strength and self-confidence that supports all that I do. I am self-contained, to a fault. Some people see it as aloof. I still have a propensity to tell people what to do, unfortunately. I know what the answer is. I mean, somebody has to take charge here!

For me, life is ever evolving and ever shaping into something better and better. Never expecting much, I’ve been surprised over and over again by blessings and opportunities. Through the years, I have been graced with wonderful teachers and therapists and mentors, and they have encouraged me to go beyond the family myth, to see that my parents were people who had their own needs and weaknesses. Their behavior wasn’t about me—it was about them. I learned that they loved me, though they couldn’t always be there for me. I think I have mostly forgiven them for being the imperfect human beings that they were. That we all are.

Having our own children, of course, helps us to forgive our parents. We see how flawed we are, how very human. How sometimes what we don’t own in ourselves, we project onto our children. I’m recalling a conversation I had with my son Kash this past January during his visit to Portland. For Christmas I gave him a book called Explaining Hitler. It seemed a bit of a strange choice for Christmas cheer, I had to admit, but I thought, "He lives in Germany. He read Fall of the Third Reich. He’ll like this book." Well, turns out that he didn’t like it, didn’t really want it. Turns out that I wanted it. So I took the book myself and said to him, well, let’s go over to Powell’s and you can pick out whatever you want, and I’ll pay for it. Turns out he wanted three books either by or about the investor Warren Buffet. Oh. OK.

Later during his vacation, we had a heart-to-heart talk. "Mom," he said, "I’m afraid you might want me to choose a career that’s about helping other people. And you really have inspired me, Mom, to think about people who are hurting. Really you have. But you know I think I might not want to help people. I think I might just want to make lots of money. I might want to become a businessman." His tone was apologetic, as though he knew that he would be disappointing me. Of course I felt awful—I went into this whole thing about how he didn’t have to earn my love, and that a person could do good in any profession, etc., etc. I tried my best to reassure him that I didn’t have in mind any particular career for him, that he should choose something that would bring him joy. But as I thought about it, I wondered. How much am I foisting off on him my guilt and distress about the suffering and injustice in our world? Am I expecting him and his brother to accomplish all that I can never finish? These demands we make of our children are generally subconscious. Our children too often take on our pain, our guilt, our unfinished lives. The best thing we can do for our children is to be healthy people ourselves. To own our failings. To forgive ourselves. To go after the joy that waits for us. In our wholeness, then, we can genuinely encourage our children to be their own persons.

As for what has been carved into us from the past, yes, it’s there and some of it is always going to be there. But we can choose to some extent what to keep with us and what to leave behind. We can build on the good memories and let the rest go, as we are able. I never really knew my mother, but there are images that stay with me. The way she combed my long hair and braided it into pig tails. The black patent leather shoes she bought for me. And when I was very tiny, the way she held me and sang, "Soldier’s had a busy day." As for my father, I remember the day he coaxed the knots out of my ball of twine. And the sweltering August day when he took me swimming at the local pool, and there he did a perfect swan dive off the high board. I didn’t even know he could swim. The bad Christmases which I dreaded every year are gone. I have my own children, my own friends, and I choose the kind of Christmas I want. I am very greatly blessed.

And the greatest blessing of all is that I no longer want to be someone else, or be somebody else’s kid, as I did for most of my younger days. I used to see a loving older woman and say, "I wish I had a mother like that." Oh, yes, I’ll look in the mirror sometimes and wish I didn’t have such a short waist, and nonsense like that. But I’m OK being me. I do not wish my early life away. It has made me what I am, for good and for ill, but mainly has strengthened me and lent me compassion. I have gifts to give because of my struggles, and I accept my life for what it has been, for all it now offers, and for the rich promises of the future. There is no one I would exchange places with, for my demons are mostly tamed—and I don’t know about theirs, no matter what the surface appearance may suggest. I don’t want a reshuffling of the deck—I’ll play just fine with the hand I’ve got.

I wish I could say that we can do anything, we can remake ourselves totally into the persons we would be. But I know that’s not true. Some things are carved in. And then besides the early givens, there is the hand of Fate. Sometimes we’re lucky, we’re buying avocados and we run into the person we’ll love forever as a life partner. Sometimes we’re not lucky, and we run into serious illness or accident. But in the midst of all that we do not choose, we should never forget all that we can choose. Even in the midst of the worst kind of loss, we can choose our response to that loss. We can choose hope over despair.

The good news is that we don’t have to be perfect to bless others, to bless the world. And all that has been a part of our path is a part of that divine blessing. Every painful experience, every failure included. Everything. The Holy One can spin the dross of our lives into gold, if we’re willing. Our part is to be faithful to that promise, to let the Spinner do the spinning.

So be it. Amen.

PRAYER

Holy One, we confess that we sometimes think that you could have done better with your planning. Our lives have not always been easy, and sometimes Fate takes us and shakes us by the scruff of the neck and throws us down. How can we be thankful? And yet make us thankful. Help us to accept ourselves as true agents of your grace.

So be it. Amen.

 
BENEDICTION

Go now, and play well the hand that you have been dealt. Go in love and in peace. Amen.

OPENING WORDS

from "February 13, 1980"

by Lucille Clifton

"mother I have worn your name like a shield.

it has torn but protected me all these years."

Copyright Ó 1999, Rev. Dr. Marilyn Sewell. All rights reserved.