This arrived on my phone from my younger son’s girlfriend this morning;
December 20, 2023
A note to my sons — shared also with you — about love
Love one another is surely among life’s hardest, crucial, most fabulous assignments.
Jesus commanded it.
He did not suggest it or consider it a good idea.
If we claim faith in Jesus, His commands leave us no options, no outs, or off ramps.
We are to love those who love us back and those who do not.
We are to love even those who for whatever reason, have chosen to reject and hate us. Hardest perhaps, we are to love those for whom we are invisible, those who regard us, if they even notice we exist, with indifference.
We are to love modern day Samaritans (the commonly rejected change from culture to culture, group to group) and Pharisees (today’s know-it-all blowhards who peer down at we lesser mortals) and teachers of the law and hookers and addicts and bankers and Rev. Private Jet pastors and prostitutes. We are to love those who treat us with the contempt shown to New Testament Samaritans.
Yes.
Everyone.
As you, my sons, love others well and as you learn to love even more people – it doesn’t come naturally – from the most distant or platonic of relationships, to the most intimate and sacred love and trust in marriage, you will be guided, sometimes cajoled, driven, even bullied by deep inner impulses.
Strong tides, forces unseen, forces felt but unknown will rise within you.
These inner pressures are sufficiently powerful that words expressed on any page will not be able to quell the force they will try to exert over you.
Love drills down deep for discovery of the opposite spirit, the counter-intuitive approach, the unexpected, the unanticipated means toward a loving, kind end.
Love your enemies is not some insurmountable-Jesus-hurdle.
He did not command it to trick anyone.
Loving your enemies is the gateway to loving all people, even to love those whom we may consider easy to love.
No one is easy to love.
Remember, what you can do to anyone you can do to everyone.
Love is really understanding the parable of the “good” Samaritan and trying to live it out daily.
Love, to imperfectly and briefly quote Paul, the Apostle, doesn’t return evil for evil.
Finally, read Paul’s summary of love in 1 Corinthians 13 and remind yourself over and over again, Paul did not have wedding sermons in mind when he put his heart on paper.
December 14, 2023
People will tell you who they are…..
….. with reasonable and trustworthy accuracy:
“The thing to remember always is that you’re surrounded by idiots. Once you get that right in your own head things start moving in your favor.”
“Everyone has something to teach me. I try to learn from everyone.”
“I never fly economy. Who’d ever do that? It’s like moving cattle. See you later.”
“It’s such a privilege to see the world. My company policy is everyone flies economy. Even the top brass.”
“I make all the decisions in our home. He leaves it all up to me. I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
“I just go straight to the top. I don’t mess with the lower rank employees, the paid by the hour sorts of people.”
“I try to live without blaming others. Yes, bad things have happened to me but I’m an adult now. I’ve got to live with what I’ve got and make the best of everything.”
“Wait for a table? Not me. I get what I want when I want or I don’t go back. I vote with my feet and they know it.”
(Said to me —- or overheard in a variety of settings)
October 31, 2023
Remembered?
How will we (you and I)……?
When it is all said and done very few, if anyone, will know about my deepest regrets.
Will they know yours? Will it matter if they do or not? What have you done with yours?
My regrets run deep, run long.
Some have taken me a lifetime of attempts at repair, some with a degree of success, others with no indications of any success.
It has not been without trying.
I have looked at myself in the mirror on hundreds, if not thousands of occasions, taken stock, took responsibility for the ways in which I hurt others.
I have given much time to assess the seasons of my life when indifference was a way of life, seasons when it looked to others as if I was winning, achieving, succeeding, when I alone knew full well I was not.
If I am remembered at all – think of all the people who really are forgotten despite significant achievements – I hope it is for being a man of hope.
Perhaps closest to my heart is the hope that my sons will continue to be the fine men they are today: trustworthy, kind, and respectful; men who give up their seats for their elders, men who look people in the eye when they engage, men who listen more than they speak.
How will you be remembered?
What is closest to your heart?
Let me know.
October 23, 2023
Ever felt like this before?
You are pushing me.
I feel it.
When I tell you you are going to tell me it is out of love or concern.
There are better ways to love me than emotional arm-wrestling.
You want me to respond to my circumstances as you may respond to pressures you are facing.
I am not you.
You are not me.
We are not the same.
We each have our own way of handling matters, from matters insignificant to matters of deep consequence.
This is not a rejection of you or of your love or an insult. It is a tribute to both of us.
I have no problem with you being unlike me.
Could you afford me the same freedom and privilege?
Very different life experiences shaped us each and delivered us to our unique challenges. It is only to be expected that our responses will be quite different.
Even what we perceive as threats are not the same. What seems to be a threat to you lands on me as a challenge. It works the other way around, too.
Let’s agree to love each other so powerfully, that we learn the fine art of leaving each other alone so our friendship may truly flourish.
I am here for you.
We can discuss anything you want and I will do it without exerting any pressure whatsoever.
Promise.
Please, return the favor.
October 22, 2023
About Mental Health — maybe yours……
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.
September 17, 2023
Maturity — the emotional kind
Emotional maturity is not age-determined.
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).
Grace-upon-grace is ours.
September 10, 2023
In THIS together
Drive in any direction in the USA and before long you’ll see construction areas with signboards that read WE ARE IN THIS TOGETHER.
We also heard this appeal adnauseum during Covid lockdowns.
Politicians preached it. Healthcare talking-heads droned about it almost as much as we heard, and still hear, the darsted word “unprecedented.”
On the freeways it’s an attempt to slow traffic and reduce accidents.
In the other contexts it’s clearly an attempt to rally and unify the population.
I want to ask, “What IS the ‘THIS’ we are in, together?”
In my book:
We are in this fabulous, beautiful, adventurous, journey called life.
We are fellow-explorers, inventors, thinkers, servers, creators, enjoy-ers.
We are on the shared journey of keeping our families together, no matter what distance may separate us.
We are IN THIS TOGETHER when our neighbor is ill and we offer and take food and do so, not because we say the words, “I am with you in this.”
In this – being “in this” no matter what it is – impacts our lives, usually costs us time and money.
I am with you in what you are facing is demonstrated by action, not words.
We may live alongside each other but we are only IN THIS TOGETHER when, despite our differences, we show up for each other.
The Mercury— 9-11-2023
September 4, 2023
I know it’s not Mothers Day but….
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).
August 31, 2023
Prayer upon rising…..
Prayer upon rising
May I…..
be a source of healing, not hurt or injury.
learn to be more patient and loving with the people closest to me.
value people more than things.
apologize sincerely and efficiently when I wrong others.
learn to respect and love myself without being self-indulgent, self-absorbed or self-centered.
be immovable about matters of personal integrity, yet flexible and understanding when others do not do what is right and good.
learn to switch off or ignore my phone when I am face-to-face with anyone.
listen more than I speak.
be generous.
consistently spend less than I earn.
learn to define myself, not others.
learn to hold my tongue when tempted to gossip.
have growing clarity about what is and what is not my business and the power to mind my own business.
keep my word.
learn to promote the strengths of others even if it means stepping aside so others may get ahead.
learn to live in the present and design a great future rather than dwell upon the way things were or could have been.
Let it be…….
difficultrelationships.com 