What is the perfect amount of time to spend with extended family on vacation? Schopenhauer spoke for many of us when he said, “We are like porcupines huddling together in the cold. We need to get close but when we do it can be painful.” Is it possible to stay together for too long? How does your family handle conflict? Operating from the amygdala, some families fight and others flee. In good marriages, we mix seasons of time together and apart.
Lot was the son of Abram’s deceased brother. Perhaps because Abram had no biological children, he imagined that Lot would be his heir someday. They were inseparable on the journey to the promised land, even down into Egypt. Like Abram, Lot had grown in wealth. We can imagine that they pitched their tents close to each other and their flocks spread out from there to find forage. But eventually, they had too many animals to stay close to each other. Abram and Lot did not quarrel, but their herders did.
Abram was a peacemaker. He wanted to stop the quarrels between their herders. “We are close relatives,” Abram observed. So he proposed a solution: choose which direction you want to go and I will go the other direction. As I read the story, Abram was not angry at all. No. He was seeking a peaceful solution to their dilemma.
Schopenhauer concluded that a family of porcupines eventually find the right distance in the cold: close, but not too close. In close families, we may differentiate ourselves enough to recognize we are still separate, even though we care about each other. Think about your family relationships. Are you so close to a family member that you are fused to them, like you were the same person? To the other extreme is there someone who is cut off from you because of conflict? A friend once told me, “It takes a lot of energy to be angry at another person.” Paul later told the believers in Rome, “If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone” (Romans 12:18).
