Creating symbols and our response to them

Symbolism and analogies can be powerful as a means of understanding the deeper meaning of a situation. There's a reason why most of our spiritual leaders tended to tell stories instead of giving dictums. I also learned this as a Family Therapist when I would sometimes give a family an analogy of themselves to play with. Like the time I compared one to guacamole...bland avocados with a spicy hot sauce teenager. Not only did it give members another way to think about themselves - it made them laugh, which is the elixir of the gods in terms of healing.

In the ongoing battle with Republicans, we've explored the analogy of hostage-takers and have been able to learn some things from those who negotiate in those circumstances.

But there's another analogy that is pretty prevalent as well - that Republicans are bullies. I tend to reject that one in favor of something like diagnosing them with oppositional defiant disorder. First of all, it keeps my humor alive. But can you also see the difference in symbolically thinking of Republicans as big mean bullies as opposed to children having a temper tantrum? There's a reason why President Obama compared them to his daughters and told them to "eat their peas." It not only creates a different response from us - it gives them much less power.

Too often in our culture, the response to bullies is to find someone bigger to "teach them a lesson." Most always it buys into the bully's frame of "might makes right." But I learned a very different lesson years ago when I worked in a shelter for runaway kids. We often had fathers, boyfriends, pimps show up angry that someone was being helped and determined to bully us into letting her go. They'd scream, shout, threaten - as bullies are wont to do.

At the time, we had a receptionist at the shelter who had been a part of the performer Prince's security detail and she also worked part time as a bouncer at the local night club in downtown Minneapolis where he got his start. She was average size/build and in no way reflected the "muscle" stereotype. But she was smart and knew what she was doing. This young woman made it perfectly clear that when a bully arrived THE LAST THING she wanted was for our "muscle" staff to come out to the reception area and get involved. She said that signaled a willingness to take the altercation to the physical level and that's the very thing you want to avoid in those circumstances. She used her calmness, her mental strength, and her own lack of willingness to be intimidated and/or back down as her primary response and NEVER had any trouble resolving these kinds of situations. You often see the same thing in small women who decide to go into law enforcement. They develop highly tuned skills rather than simply rely on the physical.

That's what we're seeing President Obama symbolically do with the Republicans these days. Its no wonder that so many fall back on gender-based metaphors when describing this ("man up," "grow some balls," "take off your pink tutu"). In some ways it goes right to the heart of patriarchy and dethrones the idea of "might makes right." As such, it destroys the premise to those who have come to rely on it for their power (and those women who have come to rely on the power they think that protection provides them).

This is why I sometimes think of Obama as our first "feminine" president - regardless of his gender. And its about time!!!