Actually, it was an inside job.
What contributed to the death of my Grandpa, was people being nice. Nice and kind (for the purpose of this conversation) are not the same thing. It’s kind to tell someone they have something hanging out of their nose so that they have the opportunity to get a tissue and fix it.
It’s being nice to ignore it completely.
Being nice is self-centered. A person being nice feels anxious over the prospect of pointing out something like a booger hanging out of someone’s nose, so instead of saying anything, they deceive themselves into believing that it’s better to say nothing. This leaves our poor snot-clod offender on display for all the world to see and she is given no chance to correct her (albeit minor) social faux pax.
Being nice is about our momentary comfort. Nice, in this context, is about the self staying safe, feeling comfortable, and risking nothing. The kind person takes a risk, reasoning that the mucus-blob-challenged person would really want to know that they were in a condition that might cause them to be embarrassed should they go the entire evening this way and no one bothered to tell them.
Being nice, avoiding conflict and, in general, any hard conversations, are what contributed to my Grandpa’s untimely death when I was a teenager.
Let me explain.
It’s true what they say. Whatever you grow up with is normalized for a kid. You don’t realize how different your family is until you start meeting and spending significant time with other people. Such as when you become a teenager or go off to college. However you were raised, in terms of family dynamics, is interpreted by a child as normal. No matter if it is Normal Rockwell perfect, or crazy and abusive, or somewhere in between. Most families are somewhere in between. In our family (we lived next door to one set of grandparents and interacted with them almost daily) Grandpa was an alcoholic. It was a kind of an open secret. Everybody knew. But nobody acknowledged it.
His behavior was so familiar, so normalized by regular exposure, that it took me till I was twelve to understand what was actually going on. Looking back, It never occurred to me to ask the adults around me questions such as:
- Why does he act and smell that way?
- Why do we always clean up after him?
- Why has he never been confronted by his family and friends with an intervention? Ever.
- Why was he seldom allowed to suffer the consequences of his actions?
- Why did we always cover up his problem and lie to the neighbors when he damages his car backing out of the driveway?
- Why was this such a secret that we (in the family) kept it from others (even though everybody in town knew)?
What I would also ask now, looking back so many years ago, is:
Why did we consistently choose our short-term comfort over his possible recovery?
I am no longer angry at my family. We were all enmeshed in this together. Forgiveness is very healing.
But still, there are no easy answers. If we had ‘done everything right’ I understand that there are no guarantees that he would have recovered. Addiction takes many lives. However, the odds of recovery go up dramatically when the family and close friends take responsibility for their role in a loved one’s recovery. One of the things normalized in my growing-up years (and I suspect in many of your homes too) was the idol of conflict avoidance. We talked about Grandpa. We rarely talked with him about the addiction. Somewhere along the way, and I suspect that this goes back generations, our family learned and unconsciously taught the ‘rules of getting along in this house’ and they went something like:
- The only options in dealing with someone about a problem are either to say nothing to them OR have an ugly confrontation.
- Speaking the truth in a loving way is a fairy tale, there is only talking about the person when they are not around, or yelling.
- Since yelling is clearly not fun, the only other option is to avoid the issue directly and talk about them behind their back.
- To keep shame to a minimum, we will hide this problem from others whenever possible.
- We punish anyone who breaks these rules with shame and yelling (and sometimes worse).
As a pastor, I see this dynamic working in congregations and families all the time. It takes one to know one, right? My wife and I have devoted a significant part of our lives in trying to break this demonic chain of oppressive behaviors in how we raise our kids and in how we relate to one another. I can guarantee you we are not perfect at this. There are still conversations I avoid. And other conversations that are less than grace-filled. But more and more, we have substantially learned how to speak the truth in love. How to be, kind rather than nice. We both come from families that worshipped at the altar of Conflict Avoidance. What often happens is, a family has a very difficult circumstance to deal with. They stumble across an unhealthy way to cope that somehow gives short-term relief, and then, generations later, long after the original situation has passed, they still function the same way. This is one way that ‘the sins of the parents’ are passed on to the next generation.
But it does not have to be this way.
How do we get started in changing this you might ask? Good Question. It starts with accurately diagnosing the problem. Whatever else a Family Therapist might say (and they have lots of good things to say about these types of things), spiritually, we start with repentance. Repent from what you ask?
Idolatry.
In this case the false god of Personal Comfort A.K.A Conflict Avoidance. The Evil One goes by many names.
What spiritual resources do have to better understand this you ask? By the way, you ask really good questions :~)
Let’s first take a look at the Large Catechism:
Martin Luther’s Large Catechism begins with a shrewd reflection on the first commandment:
“You are to have no other gods.”
He writes: “That is, you are to regard me alone as your God. What does this mean, and how is it to be understood? What does “to have a god” mean, or what is God?
Answer: A “god” is the term for that to which we are to look for all good and in which we are to find refuge in all need. Therefore, to have a god is nothing else than to trust and believe in that one with your whole heart. As I have often said, it is the trust and faith of the heart alone that make both God and an idol. If your faith and trust are right, then your God is the true one. Conversely, where your trust is false and wrong, there you do not have the true God. For these two belong together, faith and God. Anything on which your heart relies and depends, I say, that is really your God.
—Martin Luther, Large Catechism, “[The First Part: The Ten Commandments],”
Many, many, and I say again, many people trust in the perceived benefits, the superficial, saccharine-like feelings of safety, offered by the god known as Conflict Avoidance.
How do you know if you worship at the altar of Conflict Avoidance? Here are a few presence indicators. See if one or more regular describe your behavior:
- When a conversation or situation grows tense or negative any way you tend to:
- Change the subject or withdraw from the situation entirely.
- Take on the role of a peace-maker (but it’s the ‘peace at any cost’ type, not any real resolution happens).
- Become passive-aggressive or name call
- Hide your true feelings and give the impression that you are ok with an idea if that more quickly eases the tension.
- After a situation is over and the person or people believed to be ‘at fault’ for the tension are not around do you:
- Talk about the people instead of making a plan and following through totalk with the people involved.
- Continue to ruminate about the person or issue, imagining what you really want to say but never actually saying it.
These are just some of the classic presence indicators of worshipping at the altar of the god of Conflict Avoidance A.K.A Self-Protection-At-All Costs.
What fruit does this act of idolatry produce?
- Frustration
- Contempt
- Distance in the relationship
- Anxiety
- Greater risk of a serious blow-up later
- It also erodes the trust that others have in you. If you are present in a conversation and give the impression that you agree but in truth, you do not, others learn that you are not trustworthy.
But, hey! In the short run, you get to avoid a moment of unpleasantness.
As you might guess, the scriptures offer some wisdom also in this matter:
“All you need to say is simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything beyond this comes from the evil one”
~Matthew 5:37
“If your brother or sister sins, go and point out their fault, just between the two of you. If they listen to you, you have won them over. . .”
~Matthew 18:15ff
“There is one who speaks rashly like the thrusts of a sword, but the tongue of the wise brings healing.”
~Proverbs 12:18
“Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth…”
~1 Corinthians 13:4ff
“Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification according to the need of the moment, so that it will give grace to those who hear.”
~ Ephesians 4:29
“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.”
~John 13:34
These few verses (I could have added over twenty that deal with how we deal with others) give shape to a sincere, frank, honest, expression of truth, spoken in love.
If you are struck by any of this, please reach out. It is far easier to repent and heal from this than you might imagine. But it almost always takes help. We were never meant to grow into spiritual maturity alone.
Remember, God loves you and so do I!
Mark
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