“(Dys)function and Family” Holiday Guilt Trips

“(Dys)function and Family” Holiday Guilt Trips    Dr. Ray

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   A Reader’s Theater Piece taken from a Garrison Keillor piece between “Duane and Mom” regarding Thanksgiving         

Adapted from a routine by Garrison Keillor, November 29, 2014

 RING 3 X   -   PICK UP

SS: Duane?

GK: Hi, Mom. Happy Thanksgiving.

SS: Thanksgiving was two days ago, Duane. Thursday. I was waiting for your call and it never came.

GK: Mom----

SS: It never came. I sat at the table and Hank said, "Eat, for goodness sake. Eat some food." And I said to him, "Hank, I don't want my mouth to be full when my son calls me."

GK: Mom, that's a line from an old Nichols & May sketch. Mom, that's comedy.

SS: Well, you go ahead and laugh. I'm not laughing.

GK: Who came over for Thanksgiving, Mom?

SS: We saved a place for you, that's what.

GK: I'm in New York, Mom.

SS: I realize that but I thought that maybe, by some miracle.....

GK: Who was there with you?

SS: Your father's sister Sharon. The weepy one. With her deadhead boyfriend Ralph who sits there like a stone. She brought a shrimp casserole and I tell you, she has never been good at checking expiration dates ---- I knew the moment I put a forkful in my mouth that I was headed for the emergency room.

GK: What happened?

SS: Well, she was complaining that nobody likes her cooking and nothing she makes turns out right, so----- trying to comfort her, I took a second bite.

GK: And it wasn't good?

SS: I could be dead now, Duane. I almost headed for the hospital.

GK: So you got food poisoning?

SS: No, I decided by sheer force of will that I would not get food poisoning. I said it over and over. I will not get food poisoning. I do not want to be bent down over a toilet when my son calls me.

GK: So how was the turkey?

SS: We didn't have turkey this year. I sent your father to pick up the turkey at the store and he came home with tilapia. I didn't want him to feel bad, so I went ahead with it. How do you stuff tilapia? I tried and it all fell apart and I wound up with a fish stew. But your father is okay with anything. You know him. I could've served him fishsticks with melted Velveeta and he'd have been happy. So enough about me. What was your Thanksgiving like?

GK: It was okay.

SS: Okay?

GK: I went to a diner.

SS: A diner.

GK: They had a turkey dinner special and it wasn't bad. White meat and dressing and candied yams and cranberry---

SS: So who were you with?

GK: It was just me.

SS: Just you?? But what about what's her name? The girl with red hair?

GK: Colleen. She went up to Boston to spend it with her family.

SS: And she didn't take you with her?

GK: We're just friends, Mom.

SS: Well, friends don't let friends be alone on Thanksgiving. For mercy sake.....

GK: I was fine.

SS: My son, alone in a diner in New York, eating turkey and dressing in a crowd of homeless drifters.

GK: I don't think they were homeless.

SS: Well, why else would they be in a cafe?

GK: New Yorkers have tiny kitchens. Their ovens are about big enough to heat up a grilled cheese sandwich. They usually eat out. 

SS: I was thinking that if you'd like, we could all go have Christmas dinner at a diner, what do you think? Dinner at the Diner. Got a ring to it. Just you and me and Dad----- we can sit there and eat turkey loaf and instant mashed potatoes and (WEEPY) cranberry out of a can and a factory-made apple pie, instead of the home-cooked meals that your Mother has been making for the past thirty-seven years, imagining that they meant something to you---- we'll just go to a diner. One with an old waitress with a hairnet and paper placemats with advertising on them for auto body shops and funeral homes. (SOBS)

GK: Mom?

(SS SOBS)

GK: Mom. I'll plan on Christmas at yours.

SS: Only if you want to, Duane. I don't want to force you.

GK: I'll be there, Mom. I promise.

SS: Good. Then you'll get to meet Candace.

GK: Candace?

SS: Did I not tell you about her? She works at the waste treatment plant. In the office side, though -- she just got divorced! You'd love her.

GK: Oh, brother--

SS: What?

GK: Nothing, Mom. Great.

SS: I'll make cheese-balls!

GK: Can't wait. Okay, bye now.

SS: Bye now. Love you.

GK: Love you.

SS: Bye.

(PHONE CLICK)

Like many of you, I spent way too much time this week watching the impeachment hearings as Adam Schiff tried to bring some dignity and professional deportment to a painful process that was only made unbearably worse by the snide, insulting, and absurd propaganda speeches delivered by Devin Nunes.

I literally began to cringe at the sound of his voice. He was so dishonest, so hypocritical, and so melodramatically condescending as he was repeating the most obvious of Russian propaganda talking points. And at some point, it just dawned on me that after this show of hollow character, that Devin would have to go home to California and face his mother on Thanksgiving.

And, as it turns out, he probably will. His mom, Toni, is his campaign manager and has been investigated for possible mishandling of millions of dollars of campaign donations. 

 I’m not on Twitter much but, because I know that it has annoyed Devin so much that he has sued Twitter over it, I do follow #DevinNunes’Cow. It seems, that given the way he is making Congress look like a joke, it is only fair to have a little fun at his expense.

But I was surprised to learn that someone has also put up a fake Twitter account called “Devin Nunes’ Mom” and this is one of the only Tweets from the now shut down site that I could show you in church.

All I’m saying is, this is Thanksgiving week, and even if you have been a humiliatingly dishonest, treasonous, annoying little former dairy farmer from California who is now serving in Congress, before Toni serves him turkey and  gravy, and I don’t mean this literally because I am certainly opposed to domestic violence, but Toni needs to be sure that Devin knows that he has been a huge disappointment to the whole world. 

Honestly, I don’t know how I could sit down at the Thanksgiving dinner table without clearing the air a bit about how he had repeatedly brought up the Steele Dossier and then he went on to repeat totally debunked conspiracy theories about Ukraine interfering in the 2016 election to take the focus off of the obvious truth about Russian meddling.  So, really, is this any time to talk about dressing and cranberry sauce?

But, thankfully, you are not Devin Nunes and you will not have to explain yourself to your campaign manager/mother, Toni. But, if you have surviving family, there is a chance that you’ll get to go swimming in that genetic bouillabaisse that we call “family.” 

Holidays have always been difficult in some ways. Sometimes we set ourselves up for it by having Norman Rockwell styled expectations and reality rarely rises to the level of joy and ebullience that we hope for, or even think that we remember from our childhood. Still, in spite of what you may have heard to the contrary, in spite of shorter days, the expense and the travel and the hard work, most people do not fall into depression around the holidays and, as strange as it may seem, contact with even dysfunctional family members seems to help people to elevate their moods. Suicide rates actually go down during the holidays and people, in spite of the short days and colder weather, seem to be happier.

Though let me hasten to add that this is not universally true. There are dysfunctional families, which is probably about all of them, and there are abusive families. One of the hardest things we ever have to do in life is to decide which bridges to keep open and which ones need to be burned. 

My general opinion about this is that our generation has been way too fast to burn bridges. We simultaneously put all of our opinions and views on social media and we unfriend anyone who isn’t just like us. Of course, it is my job to put 15 pages of unvarnished ethical commentary on the web every week so I both attract thousands of people who like what I have to say while I am alienating tens of thousands of others . . . who are, admittedly, less intelligent and attractive than my readers and listeners but let’s not be judgemental. But, to be totally disclosive with you, I have 15,000 listeners and more than 7000 “friends” on FaceBook but I see more movies alone than I do with friends. Our generation is more digitally connected and more personally disconnected than any other generation in history. 

So, my pastoral word is this: go to Thanksgiving determined to not let anyone light your fuse, punch your buttons, or force you into a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent. I say that recognizing that you wouldn’t be here if you did not have passionate feelings about social justice and a barely seething contempt for the world view espoused by evangelical churches, Fox News commentators, and the Tea Party wing of the nearly Soviet sympathizing Republican Party. Just, remember, even when we know that you are going to do it, that I suggested that you not do it.

I am equally well aware that it does not always lie with you alone. Sometimes you don’t have to say anything at all. More than a generation ago, I was married and the whole of my in-laws were deeply rooted in Mississippi where the racism is as thick as molasses on a cold winter day. I just had to show up and just sitting at the table caused the frequency of the use of the “N” word to shoot up exponentially as they wanted desperately to show me what an embarrassment I was to their, may I call them, “clan”? And that happened whether I was wearing my favorite t-shirt or not.

When we adopted an Asian child, I refused to go back to Mississippi and subject her to their poison, though, a few years later, one of their precious white princesses married a very black football player from her collage and I will confess that I kinda wanted to go back that year, but, as I said, that bridge had already been burned. 

So, I get it, family can be difficult and at times they will try to humiliate you for having more “woke” views about race, poverty, the environment, immigration, and healthcare than they have. And it can be difficult not to stand on a chair and preach a bit, but let me put this family reunion into perspective. Yes, some of your people are difficult to connect with but there are scores of families all around you who don’t even have the option.

I am bummed that my daughter will be skiing the slopes of Colorado this Thanksgiving rather than making the long trek home to be with her aging father, whom, I reminder, does have a heart murmur and high blood pressure and who will almost certainly not live much longer, but she has become inured to my tactics. But these are 1^st world problems. 

She will come home for Christmas and we will be taking our scuba gear to some tropical location together later in the winter. And for me, this is better than anything Norman Rockwell ever imagined.

But, let’s get this into context, there are a lot of other families that won’t be getting together this year, beyond the mortal divide that comes with cancer and heart disease, there will be 700 families with an empty chair at the table this year because one of their teenaged family members was shot and killed this year. And 20 of those were at school when they were shot.

This little girl and thousands like her will not be with her family this week because she is being held in a dog kennel in a concentration camp on our border. While we have been busy worrying about stupid corrupt election deals with Ukraine, in the past few months, the numbers of children separated from their families at the border has shot up from about 7,000 to more than 10,000. How do you get your head around that? We have about 10,000 elementary students here in Springfield in our Kindergarten through 5^th grade. We may not be aware of all of these immigrant kids in cages on the border, but what if, just before Thanksgiving, every kid between the ages of 5 and 10 were swept out of Springfield and put in an undisclosed location for an undetermined period of time? Can you feel me?

We are passionate people. I applaud the prophetic spirit that animates you, that makes your heart pound for justice. But let me remind you of the words of the late John Kennedy, in a speech he was to have delivered in Austin, TX had he not been assassinated the day before . . . he said, “Let us not be petty when our cause is so great. Let us not quarrel amongst ourselves when our Nation’s future is at stake.

Let us stand together with renewed confidence in our cause – united in our heritage of the past and our hopes for the future – and determined that this land we love shall lead all “humankind” into new frontiers of peace and abundance.”

In as much as it lies with you, enjoy your traditional family foods, and do not return judgement for judgement. Give a gift of patience to those who either do not understand you or who feel threatened by who you are. You should never have to be anyone’s victim but when it happens, know that there is no virtue or joy in getting revenge. 

Remember that you have changed over the past decades. Aren’t you glad that people didn’t peg you where you were then? In the same way, let’s allow others the space and time they need to grow. Water the seeds but don’t feel obligated to pull the weeds, at least not this week. We’ll have a “friends-giving” next Sunday and you can tell me all about what you would have said, if only . . .