The Newest Year of them All!

On family and the holidays

The holidays are over.  For some this is a sad realization and others it comes with a sense of relief, and then for others, they are charged with a new sense of purpose and determination to get back out there and give it a little extra this year.  New Years Resolutions!  Our month long Christmas orgy is over. It was what it was, right?  

I think one of the interesting things about the holidays is the amount of self reflection that unconsciously takes place over the course of all those parties; spending so much time with family and old friends.   We look at our families and we see them for all their scars and truths, we know their real natures intuitively because we know them to dwell some place inside of us as well.  They are extensions of our selves.  Often the thing that irritates one family member about another is the very trait that they themselves struggle with the most.  Some people have the self-awareness to see this.  And so they make an effort to correct it, though it will always be an effort, one that they will often lose sight of along the journey of living their daily lives; caught up in the flow of the world.  That’s why the whole ritual of the holiday season is good for us.  It gives us a much needed break from living the same day over and over again.  It gives us the chance to reflect and hopefully recharge enough to get back to pushing that damn boulder up that hill.

The trip through your past, facing and reconnecting with people who knew you when you were a child, makes you fill in the gaps that you’ve inadvertently taped over about yourself.   But while some are self-aware and able try and think before acting or speaking, many, many others I fear are not.  What is self-awareness any way?  Is it an over active frontal lobe?  People who are not self-aware have less electricity running through the front of their brain?   I know that when we drink, that’s the first area of the brain to fall asleep.  That voice in our head goes to bed and we continue to ramble about the party, the dark passenger doing things for us.  That’s another topic though.  I wonder why for certain people that voice is very loud, often too loud, and it makes them neurotic.  They have trouble getting anything done, they’re like Congress.  While others that voice is barely audible and sometimes not there at all.  If it is there it’s not very wise.  And then for others that voice is a paranoid lunatic, suspecting every one of plotting against them and imagining everyone’s worst thoughts projected back at them.  I remember in Sunday School the teacher told us that voice was Jesus.  So why does Jesus make Mr. Franklin think his neighbor is angry with him because he didn’t wave at him today?  Or make him assume that every comment that comes his way is loaded with spiteful subtext?  Because they’re not channeling Jesus?   Jesus loved his metaphors.  People tend to forget that.  But really only for Jesus was that voice Jesus.   

But this brings me to an interesting thought experiment I heard about.  The Zen master said to his congregation to try something different the next time they were to come into conflict with another person.  They said step away from the situation, if only in mind, and imagine summoning a being of light.  It could be Jesus, or the Virgin Mary, or Buddha, The Archangel Michael, or Mohammad or Krishna, or Harry Potter, you get the idea.  Imagine calling upon Ghandi or Mother Theresa and asking them to take over your body for a little while.  You then ask them to handle the situation for you and to show you how it could be done with grace.  They will tell you to imagine yourselves living the other person’s troubled life.  And once you have done this, you say, but that’s no excuse for acting like a total bitch.  And the being of light says, yes, this is true, but remember, you’re not perfect either.    And you say, if they’re going to dish out shit to me, then I’ll dish it right back.  And the being says, take the high road.  Kill them with your poise and wisdom.  Here let me show you.  And the being, wearing your body like a suit, steps into the conflict and soothes it rather quickly, then they proceed to show you how to best handle the situation by showing the other person that, while irritated, you still have love for them.  You learn to speak rationally.  And the conflict ends with a new understanding and truce.  The being helps everyone see things from a higher perspective.  And then it is over and the being returns you to your body.  So where does this being come from?  Was it inside of us all the time?  Is that what they meant by saying that voice is Jesus?  It could be Jesus if we let it.  Jesus is a concept in this case; an ideal to attempt to live by.   The Zen master said to go around acting like you are enlightened and eventually you just may stop acting and start being.

Ask people to best describe Jesus’ nature to you.  Especially fundamentalists.   Not to say I condone labels but okay, for the sake of my point.  What would Jesus be like to talk to and be around?  Remember those T-shirts and bumper stickers that read: “What would Jesus do?”  Why didn’t the people who put them on their cars stop and honestly ask that question in every situation they were in. Maybe some did.  I hope so.  One thing Jesus did well, besides turning water into wine and healing the sick, was to prioritize what is important and what isn’t.   Keep the prize in mind at all times, the prize being enlightenment and all else becomes less important. Jesus didn’t hang out with the popular people or the upper class, did he?  He chose the fringe guys to hang out with.  He turned the other cheek.  He cared about everyone, not just one group or another.  People tend to forget so much of what they learned every Sunday in their local churches.  They are caught up so much in the daily events of their lives that they don’t have time to quiet the outside voices to listen to the inside one.

So we know this is true about people.  We know that no matter how much you try to make them see things in a greater perspective they will never actually change.  Despite what the movies tell us, people do not have a great character arch.  They may become self-aware enough to want to change but these things have become too ingrained into who they are.  Nothing makes sense outside of what they have always believed.  So those of us who are self-aware can say, okay, they won’t ever change, so I have to accept that and understand that and learn to work around whatever trait it is that most irritates me.  It is a difficult task to attempt, no doubt.  But that’s family, right. 

So we get to hit the restart button and we get back to our lives in the newest year of them all.  It is okay to say, this year, I’m going to try to become the best version of myself ever.  Good luck with that.  Remember that thing you’re doing is the exact same thing your father does, or your mother does, or your sister does.  Do try and listen to that being of light some times.  They just may help us all have a better world to live in.  Amen!  Or, I don’t know.