At noon the next day, Deborah Schaedler and her father came to Martina's col-lege dorm to move her out and into their own home and the warmth of their church family. With one decisive stroke, Martina ended her college career and her relationship with her own family.
Martina was the perfect daughter, an All-American star in an immigrant family from eastern Europe. A popular girl in high school, she had graduated with honors, seventh in her class. Those who knew said that had she not sprained her ankle in the last regular-season match, she would have led the volleyball team to the regional and possi-bly to the state championship. For her achievements Duquesne University offered her a gener-ous scholarship. At home she was the jewel of the family, unfailingly helpful, sweet of temperament, and sparkling in personality. Everyone expected great things of Martina.
The summer following Martina's graduation proved almost disastrous for the family, however. One brother got into serious trouble with the law, and the court or-dered him into a residential alcohol-treatment program. Recrimina-tions circled within the home. Mama was heartbroken that "once again" one of her children had let her down. Rose, the oldest, came to help out, but she had her work in Cleveland. Another daughter argued constantly with Mama, trying to get her to "lighten up". Papa retreated into his work and wood-shop. Then, without warning, he was struck with an acute viral infection. For a week he lay in the hospital near death. It was only a week before Martina's depar-ture for Pittsburgh that he was finally out of danger.
During that summer no one noticed Martina's own emotional slide. She needed someone to talk to - but to ask for it would have been 'selfish'. Mama was suffering so much with Roger's drinking problem and Papa's illness. Rose helped some, but she was in Cleveland. Martina was torn by guilt. She began to resent her mother's emotional needs. But like the good girl she always was, she helped her mother and tried to make her life eas-ier. In her mind, her resentment simply showed how selfish she really was. Her only real comfort and understanding was at Deborah's house, where she began to visit more and more often.
Life at the Schaedler's was more than the life of one family. Their life was life in the church. Mr. Schaedler was the chief elder in a small Pente-costal church just next door to their home. And the church was like an extended family. And Martina found peace there. Instead of constant demands, there was acceptance. Instead of Mama's perpetual cloud of guilt, Mrs. Schaedler filled the kitchen with hymns as she worked. And if Papa was never there for her at home, Mr. Schaedler's confi-dence and strength filled the house with a presence of peace and security. He was a man not afraid of his wife's moods, a man who could handle any crisis. And he had a special sensitivity towards Martina. She felt safe with her friend's father and admired him.
Martina finally cracked at Duquesne. She could have done well in her studies, but she believed her family expected the 3.8 average she carried in high school. She knew she would fail and let Mama down again. She tried praying, but God didn't give her a miracle. Instead of studying, she often took the bus trip back across the state line to visit the Schaedlers. Finally, when she could no longer manage the beast inside, Martina took the drastic step toward peace. She broke from her family and her Catholic faith. She joined the happy family.
The Idealized Family
Family is one of our basic values. We all want good family life. Family means security, safety, and acceptance. Family means love. To an extent that most of us come to appreciate only in mid-life, our families make us who we are.
Every family begins with love. Two people choose each other as partners for life and promise themselves to each other. They seal and confirm that gift by the most intimate act of sharing possible between human beings. Of course, many couples do not carry through with that promise. Most live it out imperfectly. Young people usually bring immature motivations to marriage. Nevertheless, the mar-riage vow in the church and its consummation in bed are fun-damentally expressions of one lifelong act of love.
The result of the couple's love-making is that the family grows. Children are the natural fruit of their par-ents' love. Biologically they receive their physical traits from their parents. Through the experience of daily life in the home their minds - what the believe and value - are formed. Human children are not like the sea turtles that hatch alone and then find their way unaided to the water. Their parents form them both physi-cally and spiritually. The family love is creative.
The family is a small community of life and love. Each family has to put to-gether a pattern for their common life. Someone has to cook each meal. The home must be cleaned and maintained. Recreational activities are often shared. Peace and order must be preserved. Love is the fundamental law of family life. Usually no one is "rewarded" for contributing to family life. Family life ‘works’ to the extent that members give themselves gener-ously for the good of the whole.
However, American family life is far from the ideal. Our society is marked more and more by separateness and iso-lation. It is fair to say that too many Americans feel they don't belong. They are alone. In part, our prosperity and mobility are responsi-ble for this. For example, my wife and I were both raised in the Great Lakes region, but today we have parents, brothers, and sisters scattered from Virginia to California, from the shores of Lake Erie to the Gulf of Mexico. The modern American way of life breaks down local traditions and folkways, especially in our larger cities. The "Southerner" you meet in Atlanta may have grown up in Boston and married in Detroit. This mobility erodes our attachment to neighbors, for we may no longer share common customs with them. Folk music and art no longer arise out of a shared life; they fall more and more into the spheres of hobbyists and devotees. Instead of folk cultures, we have developed a national mass culture. No longer do we gather for traditional dances, songs, and stories by local artists. We turn instead to mass entertainment coming out of the major cities through elec-tronic media. The people we know are no longer the people who have always lived around us. Family and neighbors sim-ply so not shape our lives the way they once did. We are a disconnected society.
What all this comes down to is this: For Americans, a life is not what you inherit but what you make. Choice is more decisive than heritage. This freedom brings great advantages. But it also puts a real burden on the individual. Now your fate is in your own hands; your life is what you make of it - and often in direct competition with others. The governing idea of adult American life - from college (or even high school) on through the work-place - is self-reliance and competitiveness. It is up to you to carve out your niche, to select your studies, to show your mettle. Nobody will take care of you. Gone are the career tracks defined by employers. You must sell yourself and define your own career.
Similarly the old customs of courtship and mating have broken down. Finding a mate after graduation is a daunting task. Again, it all falls on the individual. We have maximized our freedom - but at a price. Few of us now have the emotional support of an inherited life, of a solid social and cultural network to identify with, somewhere where we belong. But this sense of belonging is still a fundamental human need. The theme song to the TV show Cheers expresses this well: "You want to go where everybody knows your name."
The Waltons Myth
One of the best-loved TV shows of the 70s was The Wal-tons. The Waltons were, in a way, the ideal family. They were a large family - Ma and Pa, five children, and two grandpar-ents. Their home was a haven of safety, large and light and warm, at the top of a beautiful but also dangerous moun-tain. Conflicts arose in the family - sometimes even serious ones - but none so severe that they destroyed the family. Instead the strong family bonds and Ma and Pa’s wise guidance drew the children together into genuine love and care for each other. Love was unconditional. Because you were a Walton, you belonged - no questions asked. There were no entrance requirements, no performance reviews. Everyone had to work, but no one’s status as a Walton ever depended on efficiency or productivity. And every night, as the warm lights in the house went off, the family reaffirmed their bonds with each other: "G'night, Ma ... Good night, Elizabeth ... Good night, John Boy ..." As American society raced forward, we looked back at the Waltons as the kind of family we wished we could still have. We can call this the "Waltons Myth".
The Artificial Family
"It's SO NEAT! We're just like a FAMILY." This is probably the highest praise a young person can give to a youth group. A good parish or religious youth group does provide many experiences that seem to be "what family is all about". The most important of these is acceptance. Unlike high school with its classes and cliques, youth group members don't have to measure up. Just belong-ing and participating are enough. Mem-bers share time together doing something meaningful - praying, singing, learning, or working on service projects. And at the end of every project or meeting, there are "hugs all around". The group, as a group, is important. Young people in a good group come to realize that together they can grow and make a difference. What matters most in the group is not competition and personal achievement, but the love of God and neighbor. And so, if the group is well-led and working right, members will compare it to a family.
This dynamic can be a potent tool for good. By fos-tering a sense of mutual friendship, concern for each other, and common purpose, wise leaders can help young people express, deepen, live out, and spread their faith. In this they can counter much of the corrosive cynicism, competition, and isolation that form too much of the atmo-sphere in high school. A closely-knit youth group, whose mem-bers feel they belong to each other, can tap the natural generosity of young people.
However, a youth group is also a temporary thing. As quickly as leaders emerge within the group, just as quickly they disappear. College, marriage plans, mili-tary service, and new jobs pull older members out - and with them their maturity and leader-ship. Thus, as valuable as emergent youth leadership may be, the adult leaders have to provide the overall stability, continuity, and leadership. For young people themselves eventually outgrow the group and move on.
This phenomenon is important for our present topic - the Big Happy Family (B.H.F.) trap - because it provides the trap's setting. A healthy young people's group must be tem-porary. But the idea suggests itself: "If we're just like a family, why don't we make our relationship permanent? Why not form a spiritual family? Instead of blood relationships we will commit ourselves spiritually and make a covenant with each other to belong to each other." Such a "family" will involve its members' entire lives and not just monthly projects or weekly meetings. Because the covenant is perma-nent, they will never outgrow their relationships. The covenant becomes the central relationship. If the group is to last, even marriage and educational commitments will be made in terms of the spiritual family commitment. As one woman concisely put it: "God help me, if I ever think of leaving our covenant for the sake of getting a man." An artificial family is born.
In a real sense, this artificial covenant family is a spiritual application of the "Waltons Myth". The family is a haven of warmth, security, and belonging in a danger-ous world. "Out there" you are constantly being tested and evaluated, judged and re-jected. The most important things - your faith in Christ or your love for Our Lady - are belittled if you mention them. Even in your parish or at home, it seems, you can't share the deepest, most important things. The spiri-tual family is a light on a dark and threat-ening hill. In it love is unconditional. Its only law is the law of love. The one require-ment is family loyalty, or covenant love. "You belong here, because you are one of us - we all belong to each other." And when conflicts do arise, brothers and sisters in Christ resolve them peacefully under the wise guidance of the leaders. Together the brothers and sisters work together with true family commitment to bring about the Kingdom of God.
The spiritual family would be wonderful - if it were real.
A Reality Check: What Family Really Is
The truth is that the B.H.F. is not a family. Treat-ing it like one leads to a serious spiritual trap, a quick-sand of pseudo-sanctity that ensnares the conscience itself. The Waltons Myth is only one part of the truth about family life. We need to look at five other qualities of real fami-lies - qualities that we often think are irrelevant or even contrary to family life and love.
1. Family is not chosen. Very few people are close friends with all their brothers and sisters. We choose friends from outside our families. Friendship is a matter of the heart - mutual attraction and shared interests. "You are my friend, because I like you and we like the same things." Brotherhood and sisterhood are a matter of blood, of having the same parents. Sometimes two siblings will be especially close. And there are close emotional ties, even between siblings who don't much like each other. But common interests and friendship don’t make families. That is why extended family gatherings - reunions and weddings - can be boring for outsiders. These are not friends who share common outside interests; they are relatives who share com-mon family. And so what they talk about is family - family gossip, old stories, tired arguments, latest news.
Because the family is not chosen, it is an excellent school for life and love in the real world. A large part of living as a mature adult is getting on well with people one has no choice about getting involved with. Friendship with people we like is only one aspect of real life.
2. Family is boring, an everyday thing. As much as we celebrate the joys and richness of family life, it is - for the most part - routine. The daily life of a good family is usually uneventful. The prayer meeting, the youth group, the commitment ceremony, are all breaks from the routine, but family life is routine. And this is how it should be. Family is where everything is as it used to be and usually is. But it's not exciting.
3. Like the State, the family is coercive. According to the "Waltons Myth" family crises are resolved when Ma or Pa sits down and - with wisdom and compassion - helps the children to see what they need to do to be loving people. In real life, crisis resolution is often much less pretty. Ordinary families practice such "conflict resolution tech-niques" as yelling, name-calling, door-slamming, pouting, the 'silent treatment', and crying. Many conflicts are resolved by Mother's command. "All of you, go to your rooms!" or Father's order. "All right! Both boys, outside and clean up the garage!" In real families, peace is sometimes a parentally-imposed silence. Not every dispute ends with understanding and mutual appreciation. Not all wounds get healed. Most families have their uneasy truces and unspoken compromises. Beneath the surface are resent-ments, hurts, and disagreements that have never been resolved. Real families are dys-functional - more or less - and their members practice denial. The effects of original sin linger on. The family might be a haven from many dangers of the outside world, but it is not a haven from original sin. King David was a man "after the Lord’s own heart". He wrote many psalms and ruled God’s people. And his son, Amnon raped his daughter Tamar (See 2 Sam 13).
This does not mean that real families are full of hatred or that love is a mean-ingless facade. It doesn't mean that families should not try to achieve peace and real harmony. And even when relationships are more or less 'dysfunctional', family love can still be fiercely loyal. Ten of Jacob’s sons saw fit to sell their younger brother Joseph into slavery, and they didn’t get over the guilt until they discovered him alive(Gen 37-45).
4. Family ties are permanent. They persist, no matter what anyone says, wants, or intends. This is not just a matter of DNA or of state-imposed legal consequences. Family members are tied to each others' hearts. They know they owe each other some-thing - even if they try to deny it. That 'something' is a certain kind of love and loyalty. You can't escape your brother and sister, your parents, your children. Their lives are irrevocably a part of your own, even if you drift apart. In a real sense, they are under your skin.
5. Family exists to give up its members. Families are made up of parents and children, and children grow up. Then they leave home. In fact, if they don't leave, parents push them. Family exists to prepare young people for mature, independent life. No family wants to remain always together. In a real way, the family exists precisely to disintegrate. In the long run, Ma Joad can't keep her children together.
The point of these five characteristics is this: The B.H.F. is an illusion. It is not what real family life is like. As we shall see, it often has not much to do with real love, either.
The 'Trap’ in the B.H.F.
Martina had left college and moved in with the Schaedlers. Still, her sisters tried to meet with her. However, the few conversations they managed to arranged were badly strained - and not only by Martina's rebellion. By this time, nothing in Martina's life could happen outside Mr. Schaedler's control. Had Martina run off with a boyfriend or a motorcycle gang, some reconciliation might have been possible. But Mr. Schaedler and the elders of the church had shut the door.
The church was a one big family. The members all knew each other and built their entire social lives around the congregation. They also enjoyed the spiritual dis-tinction of being just about the only people in town not damned to hell. They alone obeyed the "full Gospel". All other Christians - Catholics, of course, but also Baptists and even many other Pentecostals - were lost. Outside their fellowship, the world was in the grip of the devil, and he was trying to destroy each of them, too. Where Martina was concerned, the devil's line of attack was clear. The pastor put it bluntly: "The devil's got a-hold of this girl's family." It was the church's job to protect her from this demonic onslaught. Mr. Schaedler took the role of protector, helping Martina to think rightly and training her to avoid even responding to her family. He insulated her from the outside world. Martina entrusted herself completely to him.
Within her first year in the Schaedler home, a court granted an injunction to 'protect' Martina from her family. The next year, she changed her name to Schaedler. Today Martina lives with the Schaedlers in another state and shows signs of physical abuse. She is totally submitted to the Reverend Schaedler.
Martina had serious family problems. Her relationship with her mother needed to change - something that is difficult for any mother and daughter. Right when she especially needed them, the family went into crisis. Unable to cope and drawn by the apparent warmth and security of the B.H.F. of the Schaedler’s church, Martina chose flight and ran straight into a trap.
This is NOT an unusual story. The literature on cults, abusive churches, and re-ligious manipulation repeats this pattern again and again. A young person in transition, at odds with his parents (or even just trying to live according to his own ideals) enters a group where there is 'real' family love, where hypocrisy and denial don't corrupt relation-ships, where people actually do understand and care for each other. And six months later, the natural parents or siblings begin to realize that they are cut out of his life, that this new spiritual family has replaced them completely. In fact, they are now the "enemy", "agents of Satan", whose effect on him can only be destructive. A son or daughter, brother or sister is lost for good.
Some Warnings about the B.H.F.
1. Acceptance and love are never instantaneous. Friendship and loyalty don't blossom in a day. 'Love bombing' may make a person feel loved and accepted, but in fact, it is an emotional investment that will be collected later. A true friendship - even between people who "hit it off" from the start - must be built up slowly, as friends come to know each other and enrich each other's lives. 'Instant' friendship, by comparison, does not grow. Like adolescent infatuation, it needs to be constantly reaffirmed and protected. The new brother or sister in Christ soon feels the need (fostered by the group) to prove his or her loyalty, to maintain the bond of unity by fitting in and doing what is expected. Real friends accept you for who you are - for your love of Janis Joplin and your fascination with chess, for your devotion to your kid sister and even your dislike of too much hugging.
2. Boundaries are important. "Hugs all around" seem nice, but they are unreal. Frankly, they are immature. A hug says, "I accept you completely. I welcome you into my heart." It is the gesture of those who really know and care for each other. Hugs are for family, close friends, sweethearts. Handshakes are normally the appropriate greeting between acquaintances. The handshake - which is done with the right, or weapon-bearing, hand - says, "I mean you no harm and offer to be just, fair, and open with you." Greeting a new acquaintance with a hug instead of a handshake is false.
Hugging is a matter of physical intimacy, and B.H.F. groups use it to break down natural barriers. This physical intimacy is usually the prelude to breaking down psychical boundaries. Normally, we don't share some things with other people. Matters like income and financial assets, personal weaknesses, why you were seeing a counselor, past sins, and when you plan to start having children are none of anyone else's business. To ask about things like this is rude; it's called "prying". Yet in a B.H.F. not sharing these things - like not hugging - is 'rude'; it's selfish. It means, "you don't trust us". Far too often, though, intimate personal facts, shared in confidence with a new brother or sister, will go quickly straight up the tubes to the ears of the leaders. Three years later, when you want to go home for Mother's Day, the leader will stun and shame you: "You want to visit a woman who beat her five year old child for wetting the bed? And doesn't she still treat you like a child?" In most such spiritual families, secrets and confidences are routinely betrayed to the leaders in the name of honesty and pastoral concern.
3. People are people. No organization can eliminate the effects of original sin. No group can automatically make all its members loving, generous, and understanding. Consider this: No one goes into contemplative religious orders except for love of God. Of all places on earth, a cloistered convent or monastery should be full of love, humility, compassion, and generosity. You don’t look for wealth, fame, power, or sex in a mon-astery. Contemplative monks and nuns really have given up everything for the glory of God. Yet we know from the lives of St. Bernadette, St. Thérèse of Lisieux, and Thomas Merton that contemplative religious houses are full of pettiness, rivalries, ambitions, hurt feelings, back-biting, and selfishness - even dysfunction. Even a place of complete isolation from the world and its temptations and ambitions is only an opportunity for holiness. Sin can and does flourish in any soul anywhere.
Christ never promised us the company of sinless Christians. He instituted the Church to save us. What this means, though, is that the Church - and every group within the Church - is full of people who need his grace to be saved. He did not give us a Church to affirm us or to insulate us from other people’s sins. One of the great myths that B.H.F. leaders repeat is that the early Church - the New Testament Church - was a kind social and spiritual Utopia. When the Apostles ruled the Church and Christian was on fire with the Spirit - then Church life was different, full of love and peace. But it never really was that way. St. Paul had to scold the Corinthians for their bickering (1 Cor. 1:10-17). He himself quarreled so seriously with St. Barnabas that they could no longer work together as missionaries (Acts 15:36-39) The reason that his letters are so full of teaching on how to live is that the early Christians were most certainly not all living in peace. In the Church, Christ promises salvation from our sins, but not escape from sinners.
Besides - the point of our life in Christ is to love, not to find the people who make us feel good. A spiritual family that promises more - a perfect community of sinless love - is simply a lie. This is not what Christ gave and his plan does not promise this. There is no "Big Happy Family" on earth.
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