When I was a child, I enjoyed watching the 1960s comedy television program, The Munsters. For those of you who did not see the original show or the reruns, the show featured a family of monsters who encounter the same problems as other families. Part of the joke was that they didn’t see themselves as any different from their “normal” suburban neighbors. The piece that I found most fascinating was that the family: mother, father, grandfather, and young boy included a normal (human) teenage girl. The teenager, Marilyn Munster, looked like a 1960s blonde beauty queen. She always wore her hair perfectly teased in an upturned bob and wore neatly pressed A-line dresses. She didn’t seem to notice that her family was made up of monsters. Of course, many teenagers feel embarrassed if their parents do even the slightest thing to set them apart from other families. In my estimation, Marilyn Munster represented a modern day enlightened master.
Whether we identify with the “normal” one or the “monster,” however we slice it we are viewing ourselves as separate. We may feel superior or inferior, depending on our mood. In any case, the outcome has the same genesis. We are identifying ourselves as separate from our sisters and brothers. Marilyn Munster didn’t seem to think of herself as better or worse, she accepted her family as they were. She wasn’t tempted to see them as different, wrong, or just plain embarrassing, which most of us would probably do. On the other hand, Marilyn’s family didn’t judge her either. They didn’t appear to be jealous, threatened, or need to dim her beauty in any way to make themselves feel more beautiful. They simply saw her as another beloved family member.
When we seek separation, the penalty is loss of connection. If our mission here is to join and accept each other, let’s seek to join and appreciate rather than separate and diminish.