No one feels healthy, and on top of the world, all the time.
Emotional ebbs and flows are normal.
Good days and bad days come with being human.
Give yourself a break.
If you are “down” for days, if you are unwilling to get out of bed, unwilling to engage in the regular and “normal” joys and tasks common to all people: like eating, bathing or showering, wearing clean clothing, getting ready for the day, the routines required of the general population, it may be time to seek help.
If you are overly tired and unmotivated, despite having had a good deal of sleep and find it tough to identify any joyfulness in any of your surroundings or activities or relationships, it may be time to seek help. If you sometimes feel plagued by dark thoughts, scary ideas you can’t seem to shed or shake – speak up to someone who can assist you to find help.
Emotional ebbs and flows are common but when the ebbs significantly outnumber the flows, it’s probably time to let someone know you are bordering on desperate or are already desperate.
While you think and feel you’re trapped in an emotional or relational cul-de-sac of desperation, you probably don’t have to remain there.
Reach out.
There are people willing, qualified, waiting to listen.
I have seen it in 13-year-olds and missing in adults.
The member of the family who is empowered to grow and foster healthy change within a struggling family (or church or business or not-for-profit) will demonstrate some (not necessarily all) of these abilities.
There are popular tests to measure this quotient.
Here are the abilities I look for when dealing with families or groups in conflict.
The capacity to switch lenses, to see the world, at least for a time, from another’s point of view.
The capacity to report what is heard, to be able to accurately report what is said even if the content are points of contention or disagreement.
The capacity for objectivity, to be able to remove oneself and one’s interests, at least temporarily, in order to gain a bird’s eye view of what’s going on.
The capacity to see the differences among “I” and “you” and “us” and be able to differentiate each person from his or her individual role and as a member of a group and therefore resist the natural urge to plunge into a boundary-less cloud of togetherness where individuality is threatened or lost.
The capacity for playfulness and for healthy humor under almost all circumstances as even the most intense of circumstances are usually laced somewhere with elements of irony and humor.
The capacity for kindness, even while under threat or attack (I know, I know, this is a tough one).
Our Forest….. a short walk from our home. Grace-upon-grace is ours.
My primary reason was to solemnize the wedding of friends, Eman and Natan.
Natan and I met several years ago in a small town near Geneva.
Soon after my arrival in Prague, Natan introduced me to Eman who hails from Sudan. It quickly became clear that Natan, a man of deep faith and courage, had met his match and found his soulmate.
I love expressions of courage and both bride and groom are overflowing with courage and joy and vision and care and so much else. Their combined natural charisma is as tangible as it is encouraging.
Natan and Eman met on a remote Indonesian island while each was pursuing a Masters Degree. They dated long-distance, and confronted multiple hurdles of visas, a war, and much else to make their marriage possible.
Natan announced at a wedding-preparation meal that they would honeymoon in South Africa and spend at least a day or two in Umhlanga.
Welcome to KZN, Eman and Natan, Mrs and Mr Ledvon.
May your next 50-plus or more years of marriage be as fun and beautiful as your wedding – and may some kind hotel guest be sure you see this column.
They’re on honeymoon abroad and get to read about themselves in a local paper. Content can be read above…..
Writing, thinking, talking about our mother, Mavis Iona Smith, has never been easy.
I keep meeting unfinished business.
We confront each other occasionally – in casual social interactions when I regard, with an air of flippancy, a matter Mother would have offered serious consideration, or when I cook the “wrong” way.
It is among several of my chief regrets that I discovered, when it was too late, the importance of a man knowing his mother.
I hear Mom’s voice now and then.
Mom had a beautiful singing voice and would fill the house when mother sang.
“Just like Virginia Lee,” dad would say, “your mother sings just as beautifully. Listen, you can hardly tell the difference.”
Virginia Lee was one of South Africa’s top selling vocalists.
Sometimes my mother’s voice addresses me from some galaxy within my psyche. I usually smile and, despite her protestations, proceed however I choose. I get a perfected frown when I am tempted to bend the rules, stretch the truth.
I have seen Mother cast affirming smiles when I allow fairness, compassion, kindness and mercy to prevail.
I am regularly reminded that the umbilical cord is infinitely elastic; the woman who bore me, no matter how independent I appear to be, forever influences me, sometimes tugging a little, urging me toward what is right, good, merciful and honest.
(If the above is “bulky” in the reading it’s perhaps because dad permitted no pronouns when referring to one’s mother).
Richard McChurch was very aware that God’s a communicating God. The still small voice or the thunderous call, and anything in between, (whichever God might choose to use at a given time) was not something to which he often laid claim. When Richard felt God had spoken to him, he was always particular about inserting the words “I believe God spoke to me.” This not only gave him room to be wrong but also the appearance of humility.
One day he had a very unsettling experience. It was as if everything he had ever believed about hearing God’s voice was turned upside down.
“What do you really want, Richard?” God asked when Richard was very earnestly praying about a few major decisions.
The question was posed long and hard. It lodged somewhere deep in Richard. There were no voices, no unusual feelings. This was a “matter-of-fact God” meeting him, as if face-to-face. There was no mistaking who it was as far as Richard was concerned.
“Go on, figure it out Richard. What do you really want?” he felt God say.
It was, pondered Richard, as if God was playfully saying, “Stop asking me what I want for you. I know what I want for you. I am God. I am not at all confused about what I want for you. What I require is that you get the courage to determine what you want for you. Do this, Richard, and we can do business.”
Richard was nervous. In his silent negotiations, random and scary thoughts began darting across his mind. It was very disconcerting.
Richard was full of questions“What if I want to break up my family, hurt someone? Steal something?” he questioned God.
“Is that what you really want? You want to go around hurting people? Do you really want to take what is not yours? Do you think damaging others is what you were cut out for?”
“No Lord.”
“Then quit the games, Richard.”
He felt God’s persistent voice welling up inside him.
“I am asking you to evaluate, for yourself, how you would most like to use your many talents. Take stock of the time you have left, the opportunities that come your way. You keep saying I will grant you ‘the desires of your heart’ Richard. But you know what? You wouldn’t recognize them if they jumped out at you from behind a bush. I am asking you to take the responsibility for your life. What inspires you, Richard? Develop a blueprint, Richard. Discover and know yourself, Richard. Present ME with a plan instead of continually asking me for my plan. Find my plan buried like treasure, in your strongest desires and longings. Grow up, in other words!”
Richard was shocked to hear God speak in this manner. He had always been taught that God had a plan for his life and for many years he had waited “in faith” for that plan to unfold. Now, it sounded, yes, it sounded as if God expected him to actually do something!
“That’s the problem!” God interrupted his confusion, “you want to give me the responsibility for your life when I want you to be responsible for your own life. You think my will is something deep and mysterious. It’s not. In fact my will for you is that you discover and do what you really want! Just make sure it is what you really want.”
Richard thought long and hard. He realized, to his horror that he really did not like his career. He’d chosen it purely for money and status. He realized that even his sports interests were built around promoting his career. He sat in stunned silence. Richard realized that if he honestly answered the question he was in trouble.
“What I really want to do God, is so far from what I am doing that it will take a miracle from you to turn it around,” he said in desperation.
A parent of one of my son’s peers asked my son, then about 11, if I was a “helicopter” parent.
For the uninitiated, this is a somewhat playful but can be demeaning term teachers may use for the “over-parenting” types teachers must often engage.
It’s the hyper-vigilant, ever anxious, overly child-focussed parent whose entire life appears to hub around a child or children. It is the parent who is focussed almost solely on the child’s moods, grades, levels of content or discontent. It is the parent who sees parenting as a 24/7/365 forever-calling, and who, with the advent of a child or children, finally has something for which to live.
“No, he’s more like a submarine,” he replied.
This response entertained me. It revealed an uncanny understanding of how I usually operate. This compliment still enriches me even though my parenting has ended. (I am still their dad but my sons are launched).
When facing a challenge or an issue, I tend to circle the area, often undetected. I watch. I assess, get counsel.
Then, I act.
It may take a while.
What some may perceive as inaction — is not.
The submarine is scouting the territory, testing the tides, weighing options.
The sub is seeking objectivity, assessing an approach, trying to love, and timing the potential, if necessary, of one. or even several, strikes.
Be careful who you talk to about the deeper things, personal matters, losses, that may be troubling you.
Some people are unsafe.*
Unsafe people are seldom intentionally unsafe or even aware they are.
People are unsafe as a product of their own unaddressed, unresolved, or unidentified traumas.
Your trauma, abandonment, your loss, whatever, ignites theirs. This is what makes them unsafe for things confidential. Your pain expressed rekindles theirs, rendering them less capable, not necessarily incapable, of hearing you.
Yes, it’s that simple.
The unsafe are so — not because they are fraudulent or deceptive— but because their lives feel, or are, unsafe. If you are observant, you’ll see their anxiety, you’ll experience their anxiety — which is probably not what you want at a time you are seeking understanding and perhaps comfort. Uncomfortable people cannot offer comfort. It’s not in them.
A person recently betrayed or abandoned or suffering loss is not better equipped as a result of the experience to listen to you when you face something similar. While said person remains angry or bitter or anxious or overwhelmed with grief they can be of little comfort or assistance to you.
This person will become safe(r) if and when he or she has achieved some objectivity about the experience and is able to see that his or her experience is as unique as yours is.
With “separation” from you and your experience will come greater safety.
It is at these points, points of progressive growth in objectivity, your unsafe person will be transformed into one who can handle your story, one who can identify and empathize without being drawn back into his or her “stuff” as painful as it surely has been.
While your sharing (divulging, unburdening, “downloading”) becomes about them and not you, you are in a less-safe environment.
Safe people listen.
Safe people listen without spilling (their lives into yours or your life into theirs). They are able, and this is crucial, to put themselves aside for the time it takes to listen to you.
Safe people don’t leak or cross-pollinate your information no matter how juicy or tempting it may be or how important it may make them feel to do so. Unsafe people feel rewarded or affirmed by knowing things others don’t know about you — while safe people seek no such affirmation.
Safe people don’t ask you questions simply to lead into what they really want to tell you about their own lives and their pain.
Safe people seldom have to tell you they are safe people. You already know who they are or you become aware of it soon after meeting them. Their non-anxious presence calms you.
Safe people keep it about you.
* I don’t necessarily mean unsafe people are dangerous. Talking with them about your life may not be helpful to you. That’s all.
My mind, my thinking, my brain — all that happens in my head — is quite good, still.
I know because half the time I beat my very bright friend “Obie” (and he was head prefect and dux of his school) in Words With Friends. Currently we are almost tied at 96/97 games. I’m not going to say who is ahead.
Besides beating Obie half the time I also know my thinking is just fine because I can remember stuff. I can plan activities. I can find my way in new-to-me cities after being lost for hours.
These are positive signs.
I also know when to use the words “fewer” and “less” and I’m occasionally successful in letting it go when others don’t. Every time someone says “have” when “has” is correct, and this does happen even on National Public Radio, I resist yelling “HAS.” I’m proud I possess a degree of restraint as demonstrated with the lackadaisical uses of “less” and “fewer” and “have” and “has” by many (even in influential leadership positions) and so I know I have the capacity to monitor my emotions (most of the time). Obie lives halfway around the world from me so he never sees how upset I get when I have a really good word all lined up to play and then he takes the place I planned to use, and so, rather than getting a bonus of 50 points for using all my letters, Obie wins.
I keep all these pent up emotions to myself which takes some brain willpower and useful skills of avoidance.
I certainly don’t want you to have the impression that my brain zips along and tackles everything with ease and success.
It doesn’t.
But, I can efficiently tell you how many South African rand you can get from any amount of US Dollars and if I don’t know I know how to ask SIRI.
I can tell you all about time zones and difficult things like the metric system.
I can even help you find Togo on a map.
What I struggle with is those new parking meters in Indianapolis where the print is so small on a screen half the size of a credit card and you have to put in your parking space number you forgot to look for when you parked. Even on good days I can’t find my car once I’ve parked it but with those new age parking meters my car is usually only a few spaces away and so after three or four trips back and forth I usually manage to enter the right number and add significantly to my 10,000 steps my phone insists I do every day.
Tangentially, when I park at the mall or someplace like that and I can’t find my car I lock and unlock the car from a distance with that thing that replaced car keys and follow the beeps. This usually works unless I’m in the wrong level of the parking garage which has also happened.
I’m really trying to say that my mind is in good shape, not perfect, but I trust it.
Mostly.
Some days — even for weeks — it can lead me down dark and scary passages and very lonely rabbit holes.
I can hear or see or read something, or I don’t hear or read or see something, and my brain makes it mean something and that something is most unpleasant, even unbearable and lonely to the max at times.
I read meaning into things and I get so convinced that I’m right and it makes me jumpy.
It’s at these times I don’t care how many times Obie wins.
Then, something happens (even if I drink strong coffee) or I read something or overhear a tidbit and put a few things together — a jigsaw-puzzle-with-thoughts kind of thing — and my head bumps into finding out I was wrong, very wrong, and I spent all that time being anxious in dark and scary places and lonely places for what.
For zilch.
Yes. I can spell onomatopoeia (without autocorrect) and I have known how for decades. I can beat Obie (half the time) in Words With Friends. I recently even did the parking meter thing successfully in Indianapolis and paid for the right car, mine.
Then, sometimes that same old brain takes me places, painful places, lonely places, I really don’t want to go.
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