And his soul clave unto Dinah the daughter of Jacob, and he loved the damsel

How does Jacob atone for the crimes his family committed against Shechem's? Well, he moves away, and God terrorizes the surrounding area on his behalf to keep revenge-seekers at bay, and for good measure changes Jacob's name to Israel.

This is one of the many Bible passages I can't help but think was meant to be more allegorical than literal. God intervenes on your behalf after your family slaughters people you just convinced to be circumcised, and says not only is everything cool, but you're now the head of God's chosen people, so be fruitful and multiply. A good illustration of God's forgiveness, but if we are meant to take it literally, it is almost an invitation to commit egregious crimes against your neighbors.

Anyway, applied hermeneutics aside, the story of Dinah bears a passing, fleeting resemblance to the story of my cousin. She was always the darling of the family, her mother and father bragging on her at every opportunity to anyone who would listen. How great she's doing at school, how beautiful she is, etc. After college, she married a black man (and after that, the analogy quickly breaks down). That act coupled with some shortsighted stubbornness on her part and her father's part led to a rift between them for the past 15 years.

I have had strong opinions on this, and have until now held my tongue about it in front of both the daughter and father. The gist of my thoughts are as follows: My cousin's husband is a fine man, a provider, intelligent, strong, and loves his wife and children. As a father, I could hope for nothing better for my daughter. I hope that if my daughter chooses a man I find inappropriate, but who still fits the loving provider profile, that I can put my xenophobia aside and love him as a son.

I visited with my cousin's new family when she was newly married, and I found out for the first time what a wonderful host my cousin was. She and her husband were both very inviting and generous, and if I were actively looking for something to be upset about, I don't think I could have found it. They had kids around the same time Stacey was born, and the four of them got along great on those occasions that they met, and I am so grateful for Stacey's grace and color-blindness, and that I'm not raising her amidst the backdrop of racism I was exposed to as a child that was so prevalent in the 1970s South.

I didn't notice the racism when I was a kid, just like I didn't think there was anything unusual about having a drug addict for a stepfather. In my entire childhood, I called exactly one boy a nigger. I did so because I was angry at something that had nothing to do with him, and I wanted him to go away so I could continue sulking. I believe I was in the 6th grade. I can't remember his name any more, but I remember that the year before we had been friends, but for some reason no longer saw much of each other, possibly because we were in different classes that year. I called him nigger as naturally as I would today tell a telemarketer I wasn't interested. He replied "you're the nigger," and walked away calmly. We never spoke again. A ruined friendship because I said the first mean thing to pop into my head, and it was race. It was "you're different from me because you're black."

There are lots of simple, obvious things I would change about my behavior in school as a kid. A girl I was sitting beside leaned back in her chair, and I watched passively as she lost her balance and fell, where I easily could have grabbed the chair. I picked up a styrofoam cup full of paint that I was pretending to drink, and spilled it all over the table and my hand. I decided to be a class clown on the first day I switched schools, and shouted out a mockery of a beggar panhandling in the middle of a lesson (which, sadly, only I thought was funny). There are dozens more I can't think of right now, but none of them really bother me, except the friend who's name I can't remember who I chased away with an epithet. I can't take it back, and it still hurts.

And that was only the 70s. My uncle grew up in the 40s in backwoods Virginia. Before Brown v. Board of Education. Before Rosa Parks. When Jim Crow laws still allowed segregation of theaters and trains. And it was his precious daughter, who he wanted the best for, who declared to him that she would marry a black man. The racism, conscious or not, was too deeply ingrained for him to accept his daugher miscegenating. She, headstrong and intelligent, young and in love, was unwilling to wait until the shock ended and acceptance could begin, so they let the rift grow much larger than it should have, left on bad terms, and didn't see each other for years.

The rest of the family wasn't ready to disown her over something as trivial as what color her husband was, and so began the years-long dance of her coming to visit in secret, and then openly but without her husband, and then with her husband and kids but staying at another house, and all the time no one saying anything about it to my uncle. When her oldest child was 10 and had never seen her grandfather, my cousin's car broke down. She was with the kids, her husband was out of town, and she didn't have money for a tow, so she called dad for help, like any good daughter would in similar straits. He came to help like a good father would, desperate circumstances of family outweighing bad feelings. As I see it, that was when the idea started festering in the both of them that the rift could be mended.

This Christmas was the time the rift fully healed. My grandmother, who Stacey and I went to visit last week, had lost two siblings this year, the last remaining brother and the oldest sister, leaving herself and five sisters. She was also physically ill for most of the week, having an eye infection, being in pain, and being much more tired than usual. So she is under assault physically and emotionally, and it's taking its toll on her 85 year old body. The one thing that could help alleviate the pain happened on Christmas day. The entire North Carolina "branch" of my family, all 17 of us, spent Christmas day at my uncle's house. With my cousin, her husband, and her three kids.

It was played off as no big deal that my cousin-in-law and the kids were at the house, until my grandmother started crying. After that, everyone saw it for the special moment it was. My grandmother cheered up after that, and her eye stopped bothering her, and she seemed less tired and not in pain. That's when I forgave my uncle for forbidding them from being in the house in the first place, forgave the rest of my family for playing along with the head-in-the-sand, dancing around the issue games, and forgave myself for not having spoken my mind to both my uncle and cousin.

And we ate, and we ate, and we ate, a family tradition. My family's motto is the second rule of my house that I explain to all of Stacey's friends: Nobody leaves hungry. That's the best way to solve most complex problems involving multiple people: just get them all in the same place and feed them until they can't eat anymore. The rest will sort itself out. I find that a much more elegant solution than moving away and changing your name.