Copperhead Road & Family of Origin

Have you ever flown anywhere for a vacation? Isn’t it interesting how you have to analyze what you pack when you fly in a way that is totally different that how you pack when you are traveling by automobile? The bag that seemed light at home can get very heavy after lugging it through the airport terminal.

The same is true in our relational abilities? We learn from our parents and grandparents what a marriage should look like. It does not matter that is the right picture or not, it is the one we believe because it is what we were taught and saw modeled for us.

In 1988 Steve Earle wrote a song called Copperhead Road. The singer tells of his grandfather and father making and selling moonshine. After serving in Vietnam, he comes home to alter the family tradition a bit. He begins growing marijuana. Now, I am not approving of moonshine or illicit drug use, I am only making a point. This song is above all things a song about family systems. The main character learned his behavior from his father and grandfather. He learned to sell illegal substances and disrespect authority from his family of origin.

Each of us carries “baggage” into our marriage and dating relationships. This baggage comes from what our family “taught us.” Why not take an honest look at the preconceptions you bring to your most intimate of relationships and ask: “What should I keep? What should I jettison?”

When it comes to relationships, what has your family taught you? What have the families of those we serve taught them? In all honesty, there are things we learned from our family about relationships that are good, wholesome, healthy, and worth keeping. Discover them; name them; keep them. Perhaps even improve upon them.

However, there are those items we “learned from our family” that are just plain wrong, unproductive and in many cases unhealthy. Likewise identify them; name them; then begin the process of eliminating them from your repertoire of relationship behaviors. Those “bags” can get very heavy if you carry them for year after year after year. Maybe they need to be repacked so as to lighten the load.

Paint by Number Dreams

I think Jackson Browne is one of the greatest lyricists in American music. He is such an incredible story teller. Take for example the picture your mind paints as you read these lyrics from Fountain of Sorrow.

Looking through some photographs I found inside a drawer
I was taken by a photograph of you
There were one or two I know that you would have liked a little more
But they didn’t show your spirit quite as true

You were turning round to see who was behind you
And I took your childish laughter by surprise
And at the moment that my camera happened to find you
There was just a trace of sorrow in your eyes

Here is another. In the song The Pretender, he speaks of finding a girl and then they will fulfill one another’s expectations. Consider . . .

I'm gonna find myself a girl

Who can show me what laughter means

And we'll fill in the missing colors

In each other's paint-by-number dreams

Isn’t that a great way to describe the expectations we bring into our marriage? We have this dream. We know exactly how it should be completed. We know what color it is, what shape it is, how it is decorated and even how we will manage it and enjoy having our expectations fulfilled. We then marry another incomplete human being and wonder why we are not happy. Why did they not live up to our expectations?

This is nothing short of a recipe for disaster is it not?

Why not take an honest look at the expectations we have placed upon our spouse. Are they realistic? Are they fair? Or are they totally unrealistic and completely unreachable? In our relationships, do we have a “paint by number dream” and are expecting someone else to simply fill it in? Or are you accepting them for who they are and then growing and improving together?

The outcomes could not be more different.

Marriage the Bond of Society

Who made this statement,“The first bond of society is marriage?"

No. It was not George W. Bush. It was likewise not Barack Obama. It also was not King, Hannity, Olbermann, or O’Reilly. It was not reported on MSNBC, CNN or FOX. In fact it did not come from the United States political left or right.

The quote was made by Cicero, a Roman philosopher who lived more than 2000 years ago.