I have five non-biological siblings: men and women with whom I’ve spent the most formative years of my life building trust, defending each other, looking out for each other, coming to each others’ sides in times of need. I have only one biological sibling.
He and I can draw blood over cranberry sauce.
I don’t write about him much. He is a highly successful and influential marine biologist now. Like the children of Kronos, we each took up a distinct territory: he got the sea, I got the land. It was the best way to keep us from doing further harm to each other.
But this Thanksgiving we will sit down and have a meal together. Right now, he and I share a common loved one* who is facing down a big scary medical issue in the next few weeks. It’s time to circle the wagons, learn what we can from each other, and help everyone get through this.
At the same time that we are figuring out how to reconcile our differences and move forward, I receive an email from a vitriolic reader who self-describes herself as an “old woman.” She is outraged about the election of Trump. After reading my last post about the elections, she is disgusted that I would continue to love my neighbors in spite of their choices at the polls. She accuses me, among other things, of being a “suck up” in my desire to hold family and community together.
She’s not alone. I’ve received more criticisms in the past week from fellow left-centric readers than I have Trump voters. They’re angry. They find the hatred of fellow human beings and patent disregard for Mother Earth preached by the Trump campaign as unacceptable. They attribute these reprehensible traits to every American who voted for him. They consider this a line in the sand. Some of you are even cancelling Thanksgiving so as not to face relatives who voted for the billionaire.
But folks, take a cursory tour of spiritual teachings and geopolitical history. Answering hatred with hatred doesn’t work. It’s bad for the soul, bad for peace, bad for the planet. …And really bad for digestion.
Trump’s election, for the majority of Americans (because let’s call it like it is: he did not win the popular vote) represents a great big blight on our country and our planet.
But any farmer knows that blights happen when there are bigger problems that are not being addressed. A blight is a symptom that points to an underlying problem.
And we’ve got problems. We’ve got problems with fear, mistrust, and anger.
We’ve had them before.
It started with the first Thanksgiving**, one of the greatest diplomatic moves in the history of this country. The Puritans and the Wampanoags had signed a peace treaty a few months prior, and the original Plimoth settlement benefited greatly from the alliance. But there was still a lot of mistrust. That feast day was met with criticisms from both sides. The two communities weren’t exactly warm and fuzzy with each other. But they knew they had to work together. They had to push through the differences. They needed to break bread together.
Thanksgiving remained a New England tradition, but it wasn’t a national holiday until a mother of five, Sarah Hale, made a campaign of it, badgering five different presidents and coordinating a national campaign of (primarily) women who spoke out about the need to declare it an official national holiday, about the need to pull the country together for at least one day each year. And then finally, in 1863, Abraham Lincoln, in the depths of the civil war, where brother was fighting brother, realized how very much it mattered when trying to hold a divided nation together.
We look at this holiday now as an opportunity to express gratitude for the good things in our lives. And while the expression of gratitude is an important act for overall spiritual health and happiness, there is a pragmatic benefit. When we sit down at the table with the people we love as well as the people we are angry at, and we share that phenomenon as a nation, we are taking time to acknowledge all the things that matter to us: nourishing food, family, friends, community, the health that lets us partake in the repast. We have these things in common. And whether we are divided in our families, or divided as a nation, it is an opportunity to acknowledge those things that matter most, and an expression of a mutual desire to work toward them.
Whether it is a brother and sister who fight over cranberry sauce, or a nation torn asunder over it’s future, we need to push that anger aside for a little while. We need to take a rest and break some bread and remember what we still have, and what matters most. After we’ve acknowledged those things, I’m confident there will once again be a nation of protestors and petitions that our new president will have to face down. I will be among them. We’re not going to make it through to better times without pushing through this pain. I’m certain my brother and I will also go back to fighting over the cranberry sauce, over gluten, vaccines, low fat diets, or who should set the table. Somehow, he and I just can’t know ourselves without those battles, either. But for now, we need to recognize that this day that softens our tempers matters more than ever. Please, everyone: Just shut up and eat.
It is nice to see family members who don’t get along who can still manage to get together for holidays and I must say I’m a little jealous. I couldn’t take the stress and emotional abuse and ended the relationship with my extended family 10 years ago and about 6 years ago after tears and tears ended the relationship with my parents after the final straw when my father called me a failure for leaving the career my PhD got me for farming and as he put it “a small house” and my mother who during a week long visit only spoke to me once and that was to ask how to work the washing machine. Wishing you many more “hostile” cranberry fights
Since my parents have died, and taken the huge Thanksgiving traditions with them, we don’t celebrate it much. In fact, from Thanksgiving to New Year’s Eve, we don’t do the holidays at all. We find them competitive, nasty, overblown and sad. My brother (who I do love, really), is a very wealthy doctor in Boston, with two wealthy and massively educated children, all surrounded by his very wealthy and massively educated friends. We can’t compete with all that, and were very tired of being pitied because we aren’t rich and don’t have all the degrees they do. When I look in the mirror, I don’t see the moral equivalent of a toothless old woman in rags begging for scraps, so I refuse to be treated that way. There is no meeting ground.
Sometimes, in terms of self-preservation, you have to borrow the line from FIDDLER ON THE ROOF: “May God bless and keep the family — far away from us.”
I’ll do my best to listen to the Trumpers I meet and strive to find common ground, even the smallest patch, so that bridges can be built. But I don’t need to get indigestion in order to do it.
AMEN!
This is why I love you so much! You are so unique and wise. You are able to extricate yourself from the midst of an emotional firestorm and evaluate the situation objectively. Not an easy task! But it allows you to prioritize your values and act accordingly. I wish you and yours a wonderful Thanksgiving!
Good article. One suggestion though. While technically correct the phrase “Trump’s election, for the majority of Americans (because let’s call it like it is: he did not win the popular vote) represents a great big blight on our country and our planet.” is misleading. Discount California – an extraordinarily large and liberal state, and Trump’s popular vote lead would roughly equal Clinton’s with California. So one can argue that the most of the country – except California – preferred (I won’t say wanted) Trump.
I didn’t vote for Trump, nor did I vote for Clinton. I decided we, as voters, have only ourselves to blame for poor choices and we need to stop seeing the choices as binary. Do I really want to pick between someone who is open about potentially hurting people versus someone who seems to hurt people and break the law but lie about it? Neither of those are my preferences, and I don’t have to accept those preferences any more.
I hope Mr. Trump will be respectful and work with people to accomplish positive things. I too am concerned about many of his policies – for me he isn’t solving our debt, and I am concerned that he won’t deal appropriately with the environment — but I had similar concerns with Mrs. Clinton.
But the key is we have to be willing to listen and to talk, and to get to REAL truths even when it may seem offensive. Understanding that I may want to balance the budget doesn’t mean I’m heartless with respect to the poor – we have to figure out how to do our best with both.
Tolerance, understanding, fairness and willingness to look at all sides – is key.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Shannon,
You are lovely! Thanks for trying to help everyone find a path out of disappointment and hatred 🙂
Susan
So glad to read this, Shannon. I voted for neither of the two main candidates and I am upset over the way so many of our citizens are acting. We will NEVER come together as a nation again until we learn to respect each other. And so many people ARE hurting. Maybe if we get outside of our like-thinking bubbles, and see the hard lives of others, we could understand each other more. Respect, understanding, and, yes, even love.
Happy Thanksgiving to your family, Shannon, and I must say I’m so happy this year that my daughter and my son-in-law decided to host and do most of the cooking!! I need do only stuffing, pies, and rolls! And I so appreciate your writing. Thank you.
Last night while I lay wake due to feeling ill from a cold (?). I thought about my favorite Holiday. Christmas is beautiful and the underlying meaning of looking to the light, I follow but not my favorite. Independence Day has lost its meaning nationwide. “Happy 4th”. What is that? I could go on but I think you can guess which day it is.
Yes, Thanksgiving. It is the day the whole nation sits at the table and eats with family/ community. I severed ties with my family so I am usually alone. I don’t feel alone. I feel a national spiritualism on this Holiday. I too set a table and a feast. I give thanks. I try to every day or when I am blessed. Whether obligatory or not the gatherings, the giving thanks, the tolerance, gives off positive national energy.
So please follow Shannon’s advice.
Here, here.
Everyone makes such good points. As for politics I have had a political hangover since I started voting, I am all for the no confidence vote, it would speak volumes and we should all start writing in better choices, like a dead gorilla, or no vote aka undervote, but clearly folks are already choosing these. Anyway, life is too short and I would rather move on and make the best of my days and relationships like Shannon and so many other say. As for those who are stuck in anger, I will love them and pray for them anyway, we all need that. Persistently angry people are really not angry at that issue it is usually something much deeper, that is way to much unhealthy energy that clearly as we all have noted makes for an Alkaseltzer moment, yeah I dated myself, but don’t take that stuff I just rather live in the country living life and being thankful for what I do have. We can always work on anything we don’t have just with compassion and mercy. Happy Thanksgiving!
So much head-nodding over here. At these times, I find it truly helpful to remember that I am decent, kind, and productive adult. I also find it truly helpful not to waste time defending myself to my brother whose wiring is programmed to knock me down and retain His place as the Golden Child in our family mythology. Even though we share similar world views, He feels that I support these for all the wrong reasons and in a manner that is truly ineffective. I have miraculously learned not to cry or roll my eyes every time he speaks. Dealing with my mother’s terminal illness, death, and estate was a master class in letting go of His nonsense. I became like Teflon. It will prove to be a great skill these next 4 years.
Like Trump, my brother is a petulant, narcissistic, mysogenistic, alcoholic, sadistic asshat in denial. Unlike Trump, He isn’t racist. That’s my dad.
Happy Thanksgiving. Your loved one is in my thoughts.
LLLLOOOOOLLLL!!!
I liked and agree with your previous post dealing with the election, and I also like this one!
I’m not sure whether it’s true that a majority of people voted for Clinton, though, since many who voted for her were simply voting against Trump (and vice-versa). And, as of the end of last week, there were still over 4 million votes still to be counted in California & Utah.
Yes, we are in for some bad times, but — with all due respect to those who supported Hillary Clinton — I have to say that this truly was a choice between 2 evils. As someone said, we got ‘the wolf in wolf’s clothing’ instead of ‘the wolf in sheep’s clothing’.
Thanksgiving, to me, is the most culturally family based holiday in the United States. For so many of us, our families bring healthy doses of both stress and love. Perhaps the greatest gift Thanksgiving allows us is the opportunity of familial forgiveness with the act of breaking bread.