Is it Well with Your Soul?

My younger brother called over the weekend. We always reminisce about what was once normal. So, today I’m in a reflective place.

I grew up in a very formal German family. That was the culture of my father’s family. I called my grandparents Grandma and Grandpa, and my aunts and uncles were “Aunt or Uncle so-and-so.” It was a matter of respect for our elders. We deferred to their seniority and never used their first name. That was a no-no! So, my brother and I wondered what has happened!

I’m wondering why the boundaries are slipping away in families, and why there is a lack of respect?

This got me thinking about how, despite the fact that more people know about boundary issues, the boundaries in family life have become more disturbed or relaxed. I’m taken back to the fact that many people no longer understand how to form healthy relationships.

We now have options. We can distance ourselves from family members, and we can claim that we’re too busy to connect. We can block those we can’t bother to connect with or completely remove them out of our lives. We no longer need to work out issues.

Now, pulling away from family isn’t new: the way, and the reasons we do it, may be far more creative now. In my family history, my own great-uncle on my father’s side pulled away. I never got to know him. We lost out.

The question becomes one of making the right call, and when ties should be severed.

Now I mention my mother. My mother’s upbringing honored her English and Welsh heritage. She wanted peace in the home.

I grew up in a family where my brother and my brother-in-law butted heads, and their arguments became very unpleasant for the rest of us. One was ultra-conservative and didn’t read both sides of the issue. The other got angry too fast. To be honest, our move to Europe solved the issue for us as a couple. Other family members withdrew from family activities.  

In sorting all of this out, I’m realizing that my upbringing failed to teach me how to deal with volatile family situations. My mother was a peacemaker. She wasn’t dysfunctional about it. She and my father were more on the neutral end of things. The problem is that when I look back, I’m not sure that our home was as peaceful as it looked from the outside. I’ve learned a few things about peace in the past few years. I attribute this learning to my own grief process, and the outcome of doing deep soul work.

The most important thing I’ve learned is that peace starts within each of us. Once we have made peace inside, we can slowly move into our homes, neighborhoods, and the wider community to build structures of peace. From that point it can radiate out further like a ripple on the water.

What does it take to first go inside, and then move outside of ourselves? I believe that if we can’t be completely honest with ourselves, we can’t be honest in other areas of our lives. We must first commit to the inner war of the soul. Some people call this shadow work. For others it is holy work. Whatever your own term for this is, it is brutal work that must be met with brutal honesty. It takes more than asking for peace, wanting peace, or hoping for peace. Peace within asks us to confront ourselves on multiple levels. How are we doing on respecting others, understanding racism, and understanding what it means to be a world citizen? How do we see poverty or domestic violence? How do we view the world we live in? A friend of mine has asked me: “Is it well with your soul?” As I reflect on this question, I believe the answer has to be that my soul is a journey in progress.

There are areas where I catch myself in thought and make notes to work on it. It starts inside.

I’m learning that peace is a complex issue. I’m understanding that my mother might have made more peace inside, but she wasn’t able to fully create this peace outside of herself. And so, undesired conversations happened in our home. The results from these conversations were understood to be destructive, and my mother could not quell the word wars at family gatherings because shutting down feelings and emotions is a form of disrespect to others. Could she have laid down the law? Yes. Would that have served peaceful purposes? Maybe. But not for my brother and brother-in-law. I don’t remember the conversations anymore. I do remember the tense, ugly feelings and emotions that played out in the room. Maybe that’s what makes world peace so hard.