Thanksgiving is a time of appreciating the multitude of blessings we have with a grateful heart. It is a time for fellowship with family and a time to eat a plethora of good food. On the contrary, this season of planning and preparation for a family get together causes much stress where conflict inevitably will arise. Some family members may try their best to avoid a certain subject so conflict won't sprout up while another individual may initiate conversation of a topic that hasn't been thoroughly discussed before. I was that individual.
It has always been a rule that religion and politics were not to be discussed in my grandparent's house. This is purely avoidance as it is spoken of under Conflict Styles in Managing Conflict, Chapter 11. Generally, everyone would respectfully abide by this rule. The exception of this rule was on Thanksgiving day. After all of the cooking was finished and the food was ready, my uncle gathered up the family to pray before our meal. My father was in the bathroom at this time. We didn't wait for him. My dad joined the rest of us after we prayed and gave thanks and then we all went through the line of food and enjoyed our meal together.
As a new day arrives and I wake up from my food coma, I reflect on my Thanksgiving with my family. Why didn't we wait for my dad so he could join in prayer? I knew the answer. My dad is not a Christian. I have known this for the majority of my life, but I never fully understood what his religious beliefs were. We just never talked about it before. I wanted to change that. I wanted to be a family where open discussion of various controversial topics was encouraged. "Conversation orientation involves the degree to which families favor an open climate discussion of a wide array of topics" (Adler 394). I have learned that my family is not in favor of an open climate for discussion of a variety of subjects. I have realized that I struggle with feelings of disorientation. This is one of the Strategies for Managing Dialectical Tensions. "In this mode, communicators feel so overwhelmed and helpless that they are unable to confront their problems" (Adler 299). My mom feels disorientation even more than me because when I try to ask her about how her relationship with her husband works when they are so unequally yoked, she pushes away the subject and isn't willing to talk about it with me. It's as if she is denying that there even is a conflict to discuss.
Expression-privacy dialectic is the tension between the desire to be open and disclosive and the desire to be closed and private. We all have that "drive for intimacy" (Adler 298). I wanted that with my dad. I wanted to be able to feel free to talk about our morals and beliefs without it being awkward. I have always longed to have a deeper connection with my father. I wanted to known where he finds his hope and where he believed he will go when he dies. I wanted to know what he thought the purpose of life was. These questions still go unanswered. Instead of bombarding my dad with the questions that consumed my mind, I "provided a listening ear" (Adler 390). As we read, "in Chapter 10, listening is an important type of confirming message" (Adler 390). Chapter 7 also describes specific responses to provide to the speaker to express to them that you are intentionally listening. As my dad explained his point of view and talked to me about his kind of religion, I kept eye contact and nodded occasionally when appropriate. I asked him open-ended questions in order to keep the conversation rolling in the right direction.
While my conversation with my dad continues, he gets up out of the chair he was sitting in and walks around the kitchen counter to where I am standing. He tends to pace while he rants so I continued to focus our talk. I wanted to gain an understanding and begin to comprehend why he thinks the way he does. He told me it is amusing being the only Pagan in a household full of Catholics. I begin to ask for his explanation of what a Pagan is when he gives me an irrelevant response by asking me what I want for dinner, when we clearly were in the middle of a conversation. This attempt may have been some kind of a defense mechanism or maybe he was getting tired of the conversation because he hasn't had to explain his beliefs to anyone like this before. My mother was also in the room at the time so she nagged him to tell me what a Pagan means to him because if I were to Google what that is, it wouldn't pin point my dad's beliefs. His worldview is a mixture of a variety of beliefs. When my dad is explaining something to me, he can reply ambiguously at times.
In Chapter 10, Communication Climate, an ambiguous response is defined as, "a message with more than one meaning. The words are highly abstract or have meanings private to the speaker alone" (Adler 321). He also gave me an ambiguous response when he told me that there are many concepts from various organized religions that he just can't accept. My focus has been on Christianity, but when I ask him if he could give me an example he begins talking about Islam. This response is better than complete stonewalling (Chapter 11), but on the other hand I felt like he was giving me an impervious response too. "An impervious response is when one fails to acknowledge the other person's communicative attempt, either verbally or non verbally" (Adler 317). He failed to recognize how I was longing for him to open up to me, but he didn't take the opportunity in the way I thought he would have.
I end up going about communication to my dad in a similar way that my mom does. I just avoid talking about religion with my dad. "Accommodation occurs when we allow others to have their own way rather than asserting our own point of view" (Adler 360). My goal of speaking to my father was not to convert him, but to understand him better. "Most people do not listen with the intent to understand. They listen with the intent to reply. -Steven Covey" (JsB Listening Chapter 7). My father and I have come to a compromise that we will respect each other's beliefs and accept our differences. Compromise (negotiated lose-lose), "gives both people at least some of what they want, although both sacrifice part of their goals. People usually settle for a compromise when it seems that partial satisfaction is the best they can hope for" (Adler 362).
I will never have a father who will understand the passion I possess for the organizations on campus that I am involved in. He won't be aware of the numerous events that take place with my help in leadership. I will have to accept those things. I will have to accept that according to my faith, if my dad were to die tonight, I would never see him again. Our hope as Christians is that there is life after death, that death is not the enemy, and it does not have the last say. We have a hope that if we love God and follow Him, we will live in an eternal paradise with Him. Unfortunately, some individuals have had negative experiences with the church that pushed them away and made them feel unwelcome. That was the case for my dad.
What we all need to realize is that it isn't about the people in the church, it's about God.
Not going to church because of the "hypocrites" is like not going to the gym because of the "out of shape people".
I apologized to my father and said that I was sorry that he had to experience such negativity in his life. It was not fair and it definitely was not right. I was trying to practice what Chapter 12 teaches us about Communication in Successful Friendships. It says under the header, 'Apologize and Forgive', "sooner or later friends are bound to make the kinds of 'relational transgressions' described in Chapter 9 (pages 304-305)" (Adler 391). In this case, I was not apologizing on behalf of myself, but as Christians, we misrepresent our great and almighty God every single day. No one is perfect except The Father.
The church is not a museum full of perfect people, but a hospital for the broken.
It has always been a rule that religion and politics were not to be discussed in my grandparent's house. This is purely avoidance as it is spoken of under Conflict Styles in Managing Conflict, Chapter 11. Generally, everyone would respectfully abide by this rule. The exception of this rule was on Thanksgiving day. After all of the cooking was finished and the food was ready, my uncle gathered up the family to pray before our meal. My father was in the bathroom at this time. We didn't wait for him. My dad joined the rest of us after we prayed and gave thanks and then we all went through the line of food and enjoyed our meal together.
As a new day arrives and I wake up from my food coma, I reflect on my Thanksgiving with my family. Why didn't we wait for my dad so he could join in prayer? I knew the answer. My dad is not a Christian. I have known this for the majority of my life, but I never fully understood what his religious beliefs were. We just never talked about it before. I wanted to change that. I wanted to be a family where open discussion of various controversial topics was encouraged. "Conversation orientation involves the degree to which families favor an open climate discussion of a wide array of topics" (Adler 394). I have learned that my family is not in favor of an open climate for discussion of a variety of subjects. I have realized that I struggle with feelings of disorientation. This is one of the Strategies for Managing Dialectical Tensions. "In this mode, communicators feel so overwhelmed and helpless that they are unable to confront their problems" (Adler 299). My mom feels disorientation even more than me because when I try to ask her about how her relationship with her husband works when they are so unequally yoked, she pushes away the subject and isn't willing to talk about it with me. It's as if she is denying that there even is a conflict to discuss.
Expression-privacy dialectic is the tension between the desire to be open and disclosive and the desire to be closed and private. We all have that "drive for intimacy" (Adler 298). I wanted that with my dad. I wanted to be able to feel free to talk about our morals and beliefs without it being awkward. I have always longed to have a deeper connection with my father. I wanted to known where he finds his hope and where he believed he will go when he dies. I wanted to know what he thought the purpose of life was. These questions still go unanswered. Instead of bombarding my dad with the questions that consumed my mind, I "provided a listening ear" (Adler 390). As we read, "in Chapter 10, listening is an important type of confirming message" (Adler 390). Chapter 7 also describes specific responses to provide to the speaker to express to them that you are intentionally listening. As my dad explained his point of view and talked to me about his kind of religion, I kept eye contact and nodded occasionally when appropriate. I asked him open-ended questions in order to keep the conversation rolling in the right direction.
While my conversation with my dad continues, he gets up out of the chair he was sitting in and walks around the kitchen counter to where I am standing. He tends to pace while he rants so I continued to focus our talk. I wanted to gain an understanding and begin to comprehend why he thinks the way he does. He told me it is amusing being the only Pagan in a household full of Catholics. I begin to ask for his explanation of what a Pagan is when he gives me an irrelevant response by asking me what I want for dinner, when we clearly were in the middle of a conversation. This attempt may have been some kind of a defense mechanism or maybe he was getting tired of the conversation because he hasn't had to explain his beliefs to anyone like this before. My mother was also in the room at the time so she nagged him to tell me what a Pagan means to him because if I were to Google what that is, it wouldn't pin point my dad's beliefs. His worldview is a mixture of a variety of beliefs. When my dad is explaining something to me, he can reply ambiguously at times.
In Chapter 10, Communication Climate, an ambiguous response is defined as, "a message with more than one meaning. The words are highly abstract or have meanings private to the speaker alone" (Adler 321). He also gave me an ambiguous response when he told me that there are many concepts from various organized religions that he just can't accept. My focus has been on Christianity, but when I ask him if he could give me an example he begins talking about Islam. This response is better than complete stonewalling (Chapter 11), but on the other hand I felt like he was giving me an impervious response too. "An impervious response is when one fails to acknowledge the other person's communicative attempt, either verbally or non verbally" (Adler 317). He failed to recognize how I was longing for him to open up to me, but he didn't take the opportunity in the way I thought he would have.
I end up going about communication to my dad in a similar way that my mom does. I just avoid talking about religion with my dad. "Accommodation occurs when we allow others to have their own way rather than asserting our own point of view" (Adler 360). My goal of speaking to my father was not to convert him, but to understand him better. "Most people do not listen with the intent to understand. They listen with the intent to reply. -Steven Covey" (JsB Listening Chapter 7). My father and I have come to a compromise that we will respect each other's beliefs and accept our differences. Compromise (negotiated lose-lose), "gives both people at least some of what they want, although both sacrifice part of their goals. People usually settle for a compromise when it seems that partial satisfaction is the best they can hope for" (Adler 362).
I will never have a father who will understand the passion I possess for the organizations on campus that I am involved in. He won't be aware of the numerous events that take place with my help in leadership. I will have to accept those things. I will have to accept that according to my faith, if my dad were to die tonight, I would never see him again. Our hope as Christians is that there is life after death, that death is not the enemy, and it does not have the last say. We have a hope that if we love God and follow Him, we will live in an eternal paradise with Him. Unfortunately, some individuals have had negative experiences with the church that pushed them away and made them feel unwelcome. That was the case for my dad.
What we all need to realize is that it isn't about the people in the church, it's about God.
Not going to church because of the "hypocrites" is like not going to the gym because of the "out of shape people".
I apologized to my father and said that I was sorry that he had to experience such negativity in his life. It was not fair and it definitely was not right. I was trying to practice what Chapter 12 teaches us about Communication in Successful Friendships. It says under the header, 'Apologize and Forgive', "sooner or later friends are bound to make the kinds of 'relational transgressions' described in Chapter 9 (pages 304-305)" (Adler 391). In this case, I was not apologizing on behalf of myself, but as Christians, we misrepresent our great and almighty God every single day. No one is perfect except The Father.
The church is not a museum full of perfect people, but a hospital for the broken.