Take heart when it comes to family dysfunction

Have you ever seen the “Saturday Night Live” skit that starts off with a generic family sitting together to celebrate a holiday? It doesn't matter which one. Fourth of July, Thanksgiving…It could be any one in a long line of holidays. The conversation is ambiguous and about nothing in particular.

Tempers flare over vague sentence fragments. One character threatens to leave the room, standing, snapping her napkin in her lap, crinkling her face into a frown.

The others around the table rally together to keep her in the mix. The chorus persuades her and she returns to her seat. When she sits, the whole thing starts again.

How many times have you found yourself in a similar situation? Who hasn't? When it happens to me, I have a hard time letting it roll off my back.

My usual MO is to try and fix things, watching them get bigger and bigger with each attempt. Then, of course, they blowup in my face, regardless of how noble I think my efforts are.

One day, I figured I would get outside of the feedback loop by phoning a friend for advice. Luckily, his input actually was a bolt from the blue.

He read a Thomas Moore quote to me from the book, “Care of the Soul.”


On the reality of family Moore writes: “It always has its shadow, no matter how much we wish otherwise. If we don't grasp this mystery, the soulfulness that family has to offer each of us will be spirited away in hygienic notions of what a family should be."

Moore seemed to be saying that if you are constantly trying to fix your family, you'll miss what it has to offer. I'm always trying to fix things and smooth over rough patches. Leaving them alone? It was a notion that would have never crossed my mind.

How could not fixing things make them better? I wondered.

Picture a family gathering. But picture it before the argument scene depicted in the SNL skit above happens. See your parents, siblings, aunts and uncles coming up the sidewalk to your front door, smiling and waving hello. What are they carrying? Food that they made? Desserts to share? Beer and wine? How do you feel?

I'm usually filled with happiness in these moments. I'm not even thinking of things to say to them or what I'll be serving them. I am just standing in my front door, waving back, peeking out to the cars to see who is getting out.

Moments like this are the reasons I scrub the house and prepare food and they are the reason that I will continue to do it, year after year no matter how much money parties cost, no matter how much cleanup is involved.

Sure, as the party goes on. There will be pressure to please, wrong things will be said. There might even be a dinner scene like the SNL skit. But how do such entanglements happen? Usually our faux pas stem from our expectations, our hopes and concerns. Our pride and the desire to impress gets in the way.

When confusion is in the air and emotions are running high is that the right time to iron things out? Going a step further, do things really need to be ironed out? How much of it is even under our control?

Moore also said: "By 'getting to the root' of present problems in family background, we hope to understand what is going on, and in that understanding we hope to find a cure. But care of the soul doesn't require fixing the family or becoming free of it or interpreting its pathology. We may need simply to recover soul by reflecting deeply on the soul events that have taken place in the crucible of the family."

That is real life.

By trying to make the whole of our experiences into Norman Rockwell-like moments, we are cropping too much out of the picture. What if we were to take pride in our family stories, even the ugly ones?

Might there be less internal conflict and less shame? Would it make it easier for us to share our passions and struggles? Who knows? That is not the way families operate.

But if I didn't run so fast from the less-than-perfect moments, if I didn't put so much energy into smoothing over the rough patches, wouldn't it be easier to at least see things for what they really are?

The 'Big Red Spaceship Car' that caused a time rift

Over the past week, I feel like I've aged 10 years. When my wife and I went out looking for a new car, I was thinking of the sporty Subaru WRX, or maybe the bold Toyota FJ Cruiser.

We came home with a Dodge Caravan: 17 inch wheels, inferno red, nine speakers, I was ready to roll.

And what was our first road trip? Turtleback Zoo!

As we cruised down the road I wondered why my office mates gave me such a hard time when I tried to show it off.

"I remember those days," one groaned.

"I just got free myself," said another. "I couldn't wait to get out of that thing."

"But it's got the sports suspension," I countered.

That gave everyone a good laugh.

Luckily, my wife and I suffer from the same delusion and we were totally happy with our purchase.

"Put on Dan Zanes," said my son.

Dan Zanes, good idea, I thought to myself as I hit play and started the folk music sing-along.

How could anyone not think this minivan was cool?

"Comfy back there?" I asked as the minivan that my son named "Big Red Spaceship Car" floated along. This was certainly a new phase in my life.

The time shift caused by purchasing a minivan was not unlike the effect caused in the movie "It's a Wonderful Life" when the scene jumps from young boy George Bailey to a fully grown Bailey in a fedora.

Viewers first meet him as an adult holding a suitcase. This scene perfectly illustrates why I love my minivan.

Just like the jumbo suitcase that wide-eyed George Bailey intended to buy, the minivan represents possibilities.

Family trips to Colorado to see Owen's grandparents, Florida to see my cousin...the same cousin I teased for buying a minivan not so long ago!

My mind switched to thinking of him. We always had fun camping together as kids.

I should take the family camping with the minivan I thought as I took off my fedora and put it on the passenger seat.

Yes, I was wearing a fedora, and yes, I was driving in the right lane.

I do feel older in my new minivan, but maybe that's not such a bad thing.

Irish it up for me!

“The Irish are among a select few remaining on the earth in whom an alternative, soul-filled approach to ordinary living is still alive,” author Thomas Moore.

Soul may seem at odds with green beer and red hair. But Irish soul isn’t lofty. It’s rooted in real life.

Irish soul is tough and scrappy. It comes from a people whose pride kept them strong in the face of colonization. It helped them claw their way up from the bottom at Ellis Island.

Pride in my Irish soul swells my chest to this day.

The potato famine sent my ancestors across the pond and we made our way to Queens, NY.

We worked with our hands until the mechanic and mailman (my grandfathers) met their wives in the vicinity of Steinway Street.

It was then and there that the life I know took hold and a huge family started to bloom.

Essentially, my life has been one long family party.

With more than 50 cousins, there was always an occasion to get together.

Parties were done right and anything done right was institutionalized.

My parents hosted Christmas Eve parties. Christmas Day was at one aunt’s house and Easter was held at my other aunt’s. Uncles hosted the summer barbeques.

But we weren’t just partying. We were strengthening family bonds, continuing traditions and nurturing new branches of the family tree as it grew.

Considering the “deep soul” of the Irish, Thomas Moore writes, “It basks in tradition and finds its heaven in family…”

The majority of my large family stayed close over the years. Even family members who moved away stayed in touch because of the love we have for one another. It was visible at each party.

There was love for the ones who needed a ride; love for the ones who outdid themselves with the preparations; love for the ones who always came.

Because of the love we have for one another and the high priority we place on family, favorite drinks were on hand and the spare bed was always offered.

Everyone had the chance to hand their coffee back to the host without worry and say, “Irish it up for me.”