COME closer to me;
Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass
Push close, . . . and take the best I possess!
Yield closer and closer, and give me the best you possess.
Leo Tolstoy began his novel, Anna Karenina, with the famous line, “Happy Families are all alike, every unhappy family is miserable in its own way.” Having counseled hundreds of couples by now, having grown up in a family with parents who were profoundly disappointed with one another and their marriage, I can authoritatively tell you that Tolstoy had it exactly backwards. Unhappy marriages are boringly predictable. It wouldn’t take a Ph.D. in Marriage and Family Therapy to anticipate the trajectory of these relationships. One bad interaction has a way of begetting the next bad interaction until a kind of dance sets in… a downward spiral where even the solutions become part of the problem. My family of origin was anything but unique: the defensive justifications…the eventual chilly patterns of lives lived on cold, distant parallel tracks… the quiet tension with its intermittent open conflicts. There is a monotony to unhappy marriages: “Oh yes you did say that,” “Oh no I most certainly did not,”… boringly predictable! There are the tedious inchoate rules and stereotypic roles for each family member as if each family member is following a script.
By way of contrast, in the virtuous cycle of a happy marriage, where one creative act leads to the next creative act, where one affectionate exchange gives way to the next, there is a kind of delightful unpredictability. In the rich soil of these couplings, spouses and their children tend to become more uniquely who they are, and depending upon your point of view, they tend to become whom they were meant to be.
I can remember my very first visit to my friend Marie’s high school home. I was struck by a kind of zany chaos in this disheveled, warm environment. As I came to know them, it seemed like Marie’s mom and dad, Sue and Jim, were always on the lookout for ways to surprise one another, or their kids. Favorite meals would be served for no other reason than “I kinda thought you might like it!” A wildflower, or an exotic autumn leaf would be collected on the way home from work. Next thing you know it was displayed lovingly in a vase or centerpiece. Three artists, a home-health nurse, an inspired teacher, and a brilliant care-giver were all fledged from this home. Each sibling is as different as a fingerprint.
From the perspective of everyday mysticism, why would that be surprising? Mystics from a variety of spiritual traditions see this world as God-drenched. Transcendent Creativity is no more than a breath away. Murray Bowen, one of the founders of Marriage and Family Therapy, observed that in healthy families, people become more differentiated and individuated over the course of the family life-cycle. Bowen wrote books and articles to describe the architecture of this process. Observed through the lens of an explicit mysticism, the mechanism at work in these marriages and families is the pulsing Presence of God that makes all things new and unique. Said in a more unthematic, but nonetheless spiritual way, an ecosystem rich in the calcium and oxygen of delight and intentional love has a way of leading to novelty. In this sort of system, there it’s not a risk in the expression of uniqueness. In fact, it is welcomed, and reflected back framed by delighted eyes.
Questions for reflection or a conversation with a companion:
- In your family of origin, was uniqueness encouraged?
- How do you encourage what is different than you in friends and family?
- Does your religious or spiritual community embrace uniqueness and difference?
- With whom are you most fully yourself?