I sympathize with the Cheney family this Thanksgiving. Siblings arguing with each other and claiming that Dad is on their side — geez, sounds too familiar for comfort. I have four siblings and when we were kids we were a rough and tumble pack, openly vying for our parents’ approval. We relished ratting each other out. The fickle finger of accusation waving wildly, we’d shout things like “She started it!” “It was his idea!” or “I told her you’d be mad!” Oh, we had a million ways to stay in our parents’ good graces.
You’d think it all might have been about avoiding punishment, and I guess that was part of it. But even though our parents can’t ground us anymore, we tend to search their faces as if we were contestants awaiting our score on Dancing With the Stars. Now we tease each other about who is in the No. 1 spot at any given moment, and how it shifts with a good deed done or misstep in our duty as loving offspring. (FYI, I am taking my parents to see A Christmas Carol at the Drury Lane Theater near Chicago and making them a prime rib dinner afterwards. That should vault me to No. 1 for a week or two!)
The holidays are a perfect arena for this sort of combat and we can take some small comfort that even the Cheneys are not immune. But their problems are not quite like ours, because they are a public family and their disputes have political ramifications. Who wins the Cheney dinner table argument about marriage quality is not just about their family. It resonates through Republican politics and if Liz Cheney becomes their next senator, it may be about Wyoming families as well. But in another way, this family rivalry is like any other because it’s not just about politics. Mary Cheney and her wife, Heather Poe, who have two children together, feel betrayed by Liz. As Heather posted on Facebook: “Liz has been a guest in our home, has spent time and shared holidays with our children, and when Mary and I got married in 2012 – she didn’t hesitate to tell us how happy she was for us.”
I’m just guessing based on my own experience with rough and tumble sibling betrayal, that Mary and Heather are not feeling the love right now. And again I’m speculating here, but from my anecdotal research, my guess is that at the Cheney Thanksgiving dinner table other family members will be pressured to take sides, especially Mom and Dad Cheney. Talk about uncomfortable.
No matter what your politics or what you think about Liz’s run for political office, the point is that beneath the political conversation lurks the very natural need for approval from our family. That approval forms the foundation upon which all our self-worth rests, and seeking after it from parents and siblings is right and good. Yes, even our positions on marriage equality and Cheney family politics are important, but these things function as a platform for the deeper, much more important question: Do you love me? This is why all our Thanksgiving dinners can become a bit Cheney-esque at times. No matter what we say we are arguing about, what we truly want is to know we are loved.
But how can we love each other in the midst of such contentious and vitally important debates? I like the Cheney example very much because even though our dinner table conversations do not have national or even statewide political ramifications, we behave as if they do! We can’t let go of our need to correct our family members’ mistaken opinions and in fact, often feel as if arguing with them is for their own benefit.
At my Thanksgiving table, we have all sorts of religious beliefs represented and even one represented by an absence — my sister is a Jehovah’s Witness and shuns our table as an idolatrous one. How easily we could all line up on opposing sides regarding whether my sister should just come to Thanksgiving dinner already. And, of course, there are the arguments that have nothing to do with religion or politics but the petty little things that irk us about someone. Who finds Aunt Candy tedious or Uncle Randy arrogant? Why can’t Grandma stop giving backhanded compliments? Where does Janey get off telling us it’s called “dressing” and not “stuffing” — she’s just an in-law anyway!
Ah, how quickly the whispered criticisms yield little alliances as the battle for yardage rages on the big screen TV. When we wrangle and wrestle over these petty things as if they had monumental consequences, let’s admit it — we are in the arena of rivalry for love.
So here are my confessions about how I fail and how I sometimes find the grace to keep the love in Thanksgiving.
Pray Constantly Occasionally
While seeking love and acceptance from our family is natural, to wage combat for it is idolatrous. Why? Because the source of all love is God. To engage in rivalry for a family member’s love with the intensity of a life or death struggle is to endow that love with God-like qualities. No one can live up to that expectation! To blame a family member for disappointing you is disingenuous; to betray or blame others to win that love is sinful. The only way I have found to avoid this trap is to pray constantly, and I say this tentatively since I am only able to do this conditionally and occasionally. I know that to say I pray constantly only occasionally is a bit of an oxymoron, but honestly, it’s good enough! Whenever I am able to stay rooted in God’s love for me, a love I only tentatively and occasionally believe in, I find myself less dependent on others and so less nasty when they disappoint me. Since I’m no saint, I know I can’t sustain this 24-7, but when it works, I thank God for small graces.
Practice Humility
Families at their best are vehicles for God’s love, but families at their best are also human. We all fail to love one another as fully and completely as God loves us. This is a particular problem for me because I am a bit of a black hole when it comes to love. It’s really hard to fill me up and I am in a constant state of feeling rejected — I think it’s called having abandonment issues. Anyway, the best way I’ve learned to deal with this is to remember that I am just as guilty of failing to love others, perhaps more so, than the ones I am accusing. For example, I have spent a lot of time accusing — let’s just call her Gladys — of being a self-centered, attention-sucking monster only to discover, much to my embarrassment, that I am just like Gladys! Accusing her of being unable to love me the way I wanted her to, has prevented me from seeing my own faults. This is not some sort of call for us to beat our breasts over our sinfulness. On the contrary, it was only when I realized that I was just like Gladys that I realized how much she really did love me. And it was only then that I was able to receive her love rather than reject it on technical grounds. Rather than feeling bad about myself, I am slowly becoming able to feel good about Gladys and me. Slowly, but spiritual development is all about baby steps. What I’m describing is a gift. It’s the Christian virtue of humility and it is what forgiveness looks like in practice.
I have a deep intuition that the Cheneys will find the grace to love one another on Thanksgiving Day by praying constantly occasionally and eating a little humble pie together. As for me, well, I’m keeping my fingers crossed!
Suzanne Ross blogs at the Raven Foundation, where she uses mimetic theory to provide social commentary on religion, politics, and pop culture. Follow Suzanne on Twitter @SuzanneRossRF.
Photo: Auremar/Shutterstock
Got something to say about what you're reading? We value your feedback!