What has been dubbed "Thanksgivukkah," reflects the celebrations of Thanksgiving, coinciding with the Jewish holiday, Hanukkah.  The last time this occurred was in 1888; and, some predictions estimate another 78,000 years before it will happen again.  While these are interesting facts-just as the historical narratives are- the messages underlying these holidays are inspiring and beautiful.  

In positive psychology, gratitude is a cardinal virtue, which promotes emotional wellness.  For example, we know that people who keep gratitude journals (identifying and writing down five things they are grateful for each day) report higher levels of happiness. Gratitude takes us out of ourselves and acknowledges a positive gesture from another person (personal gratitude) or moving experience in nature (transpersonal gratitude), which connects us to large life meanings.  While many of us will experience food, family and friends on Thanksgiving, a holiday in which reflection and expressions of thankfulness are at its core, leads us to greater depths of vitality and heartfulness.

Hanukkah has rich historic and symbolic meaning.  The ancient Jews of over 2,000 years ago asserted their right for religious freedom.  At present, in the spirit of Tikkun Olam (healing/repairing our world), celebrating the beauty and dignity of differences along religious, racial, ethnic, generational and gendered ways of being and loving is good for individuals, families, and societies.
 
However you are celebrating the holidays, I wish you a meaningful and joyful time....

I am reflecting on a conversation I had with a friend.  We were attempting to understand and reconcile what we perceived as an inconsistency in a developing friendship.  She respects and objectively lauds her friend for his humanitarian efforts and quests.  Objectively, her friend's actions (contributing time, money, energy and skills to help the poor and those suffering abroad in war-torn regions) reflect a noble pursuit.  

But, she queried:  How is it that he can offer presence, love, and care to people somewhat removed and not offer it to someone a bit closer?  What was it, she pondered, that could stir the heart to give in such a beautiful way to strangers; and, conversely, withhold in both subtle and tangible ways to those physically and emotionally closer?

It is not a new reality that we recognize great minds and hearts that contribute to societal progress, socially, medically, artistically and/or scientifically.  Such people are gifts to our macro world.  And, while their goodness and contributions cannot be diminished, if their family/relational lives or micro worlds were understood, important tensions and dissonance may be found. 

It may be easier for some to love, live and give when the space is not so intimate, not relational, unequal.  Often, the humanitarian is in control of whom or what he/she gives to.  He/she provides the time, the money, the skill and can rightfully walk away feeling good about his/her good work.  Unlike the micro world, he/she is not asked to respond to that which may be uncertain, based upon equity, shared power, reciprocity in giving and receiving; a far less predictable encounter, which makes one vulnerable.

Our micro world, our relational lives with family and friends can embody the humanitarian spirit when we offer our friendship, our time, our skills, and our love, with courage, closeness, flexibility and resolve to be there. 

I, personally, orient myself to broad views of the meaning of "family."  My family is large and diverse, some feel more at home than others; some I enjoy, and others I find challenging. When my father passed on three years ago-having lost both parents in my thirties-my small circle of very dear friends and I "do family."  Breaking bread with non-biological "family," sharing laughter, love and/or sorrow with my very dear friends, conjure up and take me to moments in my own family-of-origin. And, when my sis, cousin, and nieces get together, we do family too.  Family, therefore, is experienced by me as a state of fondness and love, which undoubtedly transcends blood.  Taking the concept to the highest level of abstraction, "the family of humankind," feels right and good.  The ancient to the contemporary ideologies/philosophies/theologies that disseminate and strive to embody this message add healing and beauty to our world. I digress....

Part of my dissertation research focused on professionals who address family life issues.  My participants included family life educators who are professors, authors, clergy and therapists. I wanted to explore the meaning of "family" and the implications of these meanings.  

One theme that emerged in my dissertation, "Defining Family With Integrity," came from one of my participants.  Some individuals are not spared difficult upbringings; they rightfully create and "do family" in adaptive ways.  Moreover, traditional notions of family are being expanded to include diverse family forms.  If family is a sacred space of sorts where we learn to live, forgive and love well, this is a positive development.

Below is an excerpt from my dissertation on the experience of Sebastian (pseudonym to preserve confidentiality), who is a professor and clergy person.  

Defining Family With Integrity

Defining family with integrity is a theme that reflects what appears to be participants’ deep understanding of the complexities involved in modern family life, which translates to a moral component, integrity.  At its core, the quality of integrity bespeaks to one’s ability to have actions in consonance with one’s belief systems.  Participants' lived experiences with family diversity appear to stretch their understandings.

For example, Sebastian describes: “family diversity is pretty much who we are in my own family.”  Sebastian has personal experience, which appears to lend itself to greater receptivity and an expansive view of family for others. Sebastian’s intellectual and emotional movement is experienced rather poignantly:

"It’s harder and harder to think of how you’d define family in structural ways. If you could take it for granted that
everybody is going to get married and have their own biological children and that was it, instead of living together and having
children, but not getting married. Or bringing children from different marriages. Or even being same-sex and adopting
children or one of them is artificially inseminated.  You know? And I’m not willing to say this is a family and this is [not]-even, even if it’s not on ideological grounds, but on the basis of saying, being able to say…I can’t with integrity! I’m going to draw the boundary here (of a family); it’s indefensible…in terms of trying to defend a particular version of family… I need to wrestle with the question."

In this example, Sebastian captures the complexity of family diversity issues, ethics, and the broader responsibilities he experiences.  The movement appears to be experienced as follows: Sebastian has 1) an experience of diversity in his own family, 2) an intellectual and ideological grasp of the complexity, 3) a moral orientation that subjugates a response of defining family circumscribed to particulars, in favor of “wrestling with the question.”  Here, Sebastian experiences a virtue he values as a human self and a self of the FLE: integrity.