Therapy, therapists, and the therapeutic process are often misunderstood.

“I went to a therapist and all he (she) did was listen – he hardly said a word.”

Good. You probably found a good one. He is with you to hear from you and you’d be amazed at how much you may learn from listening to yourself speak.

“My therapist is kinda new-agey – she says things like ‘ah ha’ and ‘hhhmm’ no matter what I say – I could sing a nursery rhyme and she’d be all over me with affirmation.”

Again, good. You are paying a professional to build a professional relationship with you and if you need to sing a nursery rhyme to her to do so then she will be thrilled. The game will end when you decide. It’s your hour, not hers.

“I told my therapist I was tired of my marriage and was thinking about an affair and he just nodded and smiled as if that was a really good idea. Does he not have any sense of what is right and wrong?”

Again, very good. He probably does. What is important in your hour together is what you consider is helpful or unhelpful for your marriage. You are there about your life – not his.

Quotations are not real – just typical.

The emotionally healthy human

Makes decisions about his or her behavior based on internal principals that are established long before a decision has to be made. When faced with a moral dilemma the decision is already made.

Is deeply connected to family and to friends but is also able to function independently of family and friends when necessary. When necessary he or she can make very unpopular but necessary decisions.

Secures routine time alone: time to think, plan, read, and time to pray. He or she is comfortable with being alone and with necessary silence. Quietness and aloneness is a necessary ally and not an enemy to be warded off at all costs.

Is quick to forgive most things but is willing to trust differently in the future. He or she understands that forgiving doesn’t necessarily mean forgetting although there are times when it will.

Is as comfortable around wealth and status as he or she is around want and poverty – he or she adores or abhors neither. He or she is comfortable with his or he status in life.

Appears to be internally driven rather than externally steered. This can appear as arrogance to those who are tossed and turned by trends and fashions.

Bibles for Swaziland* (no tax advantage or publicity available)

Saturday offering….. (if you want to skip church tomorrow!)

I am seldom afraid to ASK if it’s not for me or for my children – so, here goes:

About two years ago Thulani and Nate and I visited Swaziland to speak to a very large community of children in a community center.

We were in Pigg’s Peak. (Nothing to do with pigs).

The public meeting (of hundreds of children) was organized and hosted by the head (Bernadette Fourie) of a small private school called Hlanganani Primary School.

Bernadette hosted my family and my sister Jennifer Arthur in her home with her family for the few days we were there.

Hlanganani Primary School needs 150 (NEW) Bibles.

This week I asked Bernadette how much 150 Bibles would cost in USD for her to make the purchase in Swaziland and she came back with the grand total of $544.87.

I know I could write a check (and I will). I know I could write a grant request to area churches (and wait for 11 or 13 months or longer while they debate the pros and cons of sending money for Bibles to “Africa”).

I am not going to do that.

These students will graduate from university before most churches can make such decisions. But, as I have thought about it, here are some of the questions that are likely to be asked if I make a church request – and ALL of them I have heard in some form or another over the years (of course not only about Bibles) while visiting and working with churches who “do” “overseas” missions:

1. Couldn’t we collect some old Bibles and send them – I have a few in my house we never even use? Wouldn’t that make it more personal?

2. Would they appreciate them if they haven’t worked for them – you know how they are?

3. Where is Swaziland anyway? Is that a REAL place? Isn’t that just a fictional place from a Disney movie? (“No, mam, that’s Madagascar you’re thinking of, and that’s a real place too – believe it or not”).

4. Why would you send MONEY – how will you know it GETS THERE and how will you know it isn’t used for OTHER purposes? You do know how they are in Africa don’t you?

5. Don’t they need water and food more than Bibles? You know people can’t hear the Word if they are hungry and hungry – doesn’t they Bible say something about that? (I hear they need bicycles anyway.)

6. Have you researched ways to get cheaper Bibles – you do know that the Gideons put them in hotel for FREE? Couldn’t you get some of those?

7. $3.62 USD PER BIBLE sounds like a lot for a Bible – are you sure you can’t get cheaper? Are these soft or hard covered?

8. One hundred and fifty? Why can’t they share? I thought Africans were really good at sharing? Have you seen that picture on Facebook where all the little African children are sitting around with their feet touching while they share candy? Why can’t they do that with Bibles?

9. How will giving OUR money for Bibles to Swaziland bring in new members to OUR church?

10. We have people RIGHT HERE in our neighborhoods who need Bibles – are you giving to them?

11. Are these children (insert denomination) children?

12. What language will the Bibles be in and what translation – we don’t want to mislead people by using one of those new inaccurate translations do we?

13. You do know we are installing new carpets (insert your particular new installation: a new spa, coffee shop, fitness center, tech-center, roller-coaster, parking-lot monorail) at this time and all our resources are budgeted – will you be okay if we put it on the docket for next year?

14. Is the school (insert denomination) and has it been cleared by the (insert domination) national office as an official (insert denomination) mission site?

15. What kind of precedent will this set? Who else will want similar help? Have you thought about where this will end? Giving is a slippery slope I hope you know. Bibles today, what will it be tomorrow?

16. Can we pray about it and get back to you?

17. Do these children tithe? Do you know God will bless them if they tithe and then they wan’t have to go around asking for things and you know how much better they will feel about themselves.

Forgive my cynicism.

if you’d like to help let me know. I will send EVERY PENNY to Hlanganani Primary School and if we get more than $544.87 I will send that too. Send me a note if you’d like to help. I will send the total through Moneygram.

Thanks

* I am making this request in my private capacity as a human being – you will not get a tax receipt or any publicity and it has nothing to do with where I work or where I attend church

My mother would say you could tell everything about a man from the condition of his shoes.

I admit this did not make too much difference to me when I was a boy and I pay little attention to my shoes even now – although I do have polish and brush on hand and do the necessary almost daily.

I am sure that she’d agree there were a few other indications of impeccable integrity and fine character apart from a good spit and polish.

Want to know about a man?

Watch how he treats people who serve him – like waiters in a restaurant or the porter in a hotel. Watch his behavior when he’s trying to impress others – when he’s showing off a little; watch what he chooses to show off about. Watch how he responds when things don’t go his way – when he doesn’t get that airline upgrade or his meal isn’t exactly as he ordered it. Listen to what he finds funny, to the jokes he tells, to the gossip he spreads.

Get a little closer and watch how he treats his mother.

You can tell everything about a man (and a boy) if you watch and listen to how he treats and speaks to his mother.

“My ex-husband insists on coming into my house when he drops off the children because he ‘pay for all this’ and he insists on seeing the children’s rooms to ‘check they are safe’ and he walks around the house as if he still lives in it – in a kind of bullying way. He does this most if he has been drinking. He never stays too long but I want to him to respect my home as my home and to respect that I am a good mother. How do I do this?”

This is troubling on a few levels: the father of your children is checking up on if the children are safe in your house BUT he is driving them after he has been drinking. This is the first issue to face.

Children deserve drivers who are 100% sober. This is a matter for you to address with your lawyer and your ex.

Bullies seldom learn from reason – you have a legitimate desire to protect your boundaries but enforcing them with a man who sounds disrespectful and entitled my be difficult for your to do on your own.

It’s time to gather your community and seek the wisdom of those who know you the best and have loved you the longest.

1. Your close friends think you are becoming too outspoken and are speaking your mind in ways they consider uncharacteristic of you. They say you are out of control.
2. Your have reframed your secrets and can now see how they have held you back or shifted your trajectory and you are doing what you can to get rid of them or use them for your wellbeing rather than your slow destruction.
3. You have seen the light regarding the difference between peacekeeping and peacemaking and have embraced and engaged in the necessary conflict required to be a peacemaker.
4. You have embarked on defining yourself rather than allowing others to do it for you and have faced the music of those who’d prefer you to stay as you were.
5. You are progressively shedding victimhood and taking full responsibility for yourself in every manner: financial, spiritual, psychological, and sexual.
6. You are being generous and kind at every turn and have begun to see first-hand the domino effect of goodness, forgiveness, and generosity.
7. You are writing a script for the immediate and the future that includes respect, mutuality, and equality in all your relationships.

There are victims everywhere – and, here’s the kicker, there may be one within you, or me.

Resist him. Don’t placate her. He’s out to get you. She’ll persist until she gets her way.

How to spoil a child

Run interference for your child as much as possible so that nothing has a chance to teach your child that actions (an inactions) have natural consequences.

Give your child the distinct impression that teachers and coaches and school authorities are idiots who deserve little or no respect.

Break rules of civility yourself so your child will naturally learn that your child is above them and that they do not apply to anyone in your family.

Praise your child indiscriminately for everything but most especially where little or no skill or talent is demonstrated so that the pain of having to learn something new or difficult may be delayed or at least avoided.

Blame the teacher if your child doesn’t do homework: attack the way it was assigned, or the timing of the assignment, or the lack of access to what was required of the assignment on the Internet, or the relevance of the assignment – but never even vaguely suggest the child’s homework is the child’s responsibility.

Do your very best to live as though every discomfort in your life is someone or something else’s fault so that your child may carry the same sense of blame into the future.

How not to spoil a child

Have a full, meaningful life before you conceive, adopt, or foster a child. Do this so the child is unlikely to become the center of your universe and therefore have to occupy a place in your life, and have power in your life, that no child is designed or equipped to hold. It’s not too late to develop a life outside of your child. Children who are LEAST important to their parents’ salvation (success, reputation) are more likely to enjoy healthy adult lives than those who are faced with the unreasonable task of making their parents happy or appear successful. (Ed Friedman, Generation to Generation – liberal paraphrase)

Allow natural, reasonable consequences to occur so that your child may appreciate the power of cause and effect, as imperfect as it sometimes is.

Get out of the way as much as possible so your child learns to show up, speak up, and self-advocate as early as possible. Be this way especially with the school.

Try to do fewer things for your child so that your child has to do more and more. Self-sufficiency is among the holiest of gifts you can give your child and it is truly a gift that keeps on giving.