March 28, 2010
by Rod Smith
Forgiveness is a wonderful, divine, gift. It can most dramatically precipitate healing among and within people. He who chooses to forgive seldom loses. He (or she) who initiates forgiveness reveals his strength. It is the stronger person who is first to forgive, and when the exchange is made, both parties – the forgiver and the forgiven – each benefit from the act.
As quickly as you find it possible, and can muster the strength from within you: forgive when you have been wronged; when you are uncomfortable being around a particular person and would rather avoid them; when you find you have little or nothing positive to say to or about someone; when you always look for a way to avoid a certain person;
when you find it hard to think positive thoughts about someone.
Forgive when someone’s actions (real or perceived) seem to be buried or sealed into your consciousness and you can’t seem to free them from the prison in your head. Forgive when you feel haunted by someone whose acts against you will not let you go.
Forgiveness links us with the divine, heals fragile families, hurting communities and restores hope within broken people – and sets the forgiver free.
Posted in Boundaries, Difficult Relationships, Family, Forgiveness, Friendship, Grace |
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February 15, 2010
by Rod Smith
Love her mother....
(former Durban City soccer star) wrote to me this week. Celebrating the joys of parenting of his infant daughter triggered his reminiscing: “You never taught me how to do this,” said his brief note referring to when I was his school teacher. You are correct, Grant. There isn’t curriculum that can effectively teach you to be a dad. Nonetheless Grant, here are a few challenges:
1. Dedicate yourself to your daughter to the same degree you enjoyed the dedication of your own mother and father. You could not have had better parents.
2. Love, serve, and honor your partner. Loving your child’s mother is the single most powerful way you can love your daughter.
3. Be as committed to honesty with your child as you were with others when you were a boy.
4. Don’t let the mundane, but necessary, tasks wear the joy out of you. Babies need fun more than they need clean nappies.
5. Go away for an overnight and a full day often with your daughter – just the two of you. Get no help packing or planning from anyone.
6. Finally, leave the teaching to your daughter. She will teach you how to be her dad more effectively anything you will ever teach her.
(Name used with permission)
Posted in Boundaries, Children, Communication, Differentiation, Faith, Family, Friendship, Listening, Marriage, Parenting/Children, Trust, Voice, Womanhood |
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December 23, 2009
by Rod Smith
Some things are overrated for their power to shape people. Before I am barraged with mail, kindly note I am not suggesting these things are not important. I am suggesting they are offered more power to heal or hurt than appropriate:
1. Parenting: While of course it is important parents do all they can to be good parents, do the right and loving thing, and be available to help and correct and love their young – multiple factors influence and shape children into adults. Thank God my children are infinitely more than, much more, than a product of my parenting.
2. Empathy: Counselors spend much time developing their ability to embrace the experience of the client – as if understanding the client, feeling what the client feels, is in itself the silver bullet of greater mental health. Empathy is not, in itself, a useful end. Thank God my professors offered me personal challenges, invited me to embrace change, while also attempting to understand and embrace my experience.
3. Childhood: I believe our self-help culture has managed to convince the masses that, pivotal to ensuring healthy adulthood, is a happy childhood. While no one in their right mind desires an unhappy childhood for any child, an unhappy childhood does not preclude a person from a full, purposeful, and prosperous adulthood. Look around you: many men and women with the most troubled of childhoods have risen above it all and changed the world – for good.
Posted in Adolescence, Affairs, Anger, Attraction, Betrayal, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Forgiveness, Friendship, High maintenance relationships, Leadership, Love, Manipulation, Parenting/Children, Past relationships |
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November 30, 2009
by Rod Smith
I really liked him, he didn't plug his book every five minutes.....
I ran into a Durban’s own Wilson Goeda this past week, in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii. From what I can tell, as the director of Youth With a Mission in Durban, he’s doing great things for humanity.
It was refreshing for me to hear Wilson’s strong South African accent, richly peppered with Afrikaans and slang from several other languages. His deep love for people and thunderous voice made his poignant reflections of a tough childhood and his call for humble reconciliation among all peoples all the more credible.
Wilson Goeda travels the world (he’s been to 60 nations thus far) promoting understanding among cultures. He helps people access grace and become reconciled with their pasts, befriend the present, and, above all, embrace their neighbors.
He did not plug his book (he didn’t even mention it) as is common with public speakers. He didn’t wallow in the self-pity or use dramatic events of his past to hook his audience.
Rather, with good humor and limitless zeal, Goeda talked of a shared hope and the myriad of possibilities that come our way when we live as men and women surrendered to a purpose greater than our own immediate fulfillment. Goeda’s book “Why Me” is available at http://www.WilsonGoeda.com.
Posted in Differentiation, Forgiveness, Friendship, Grace, Meditation, Trust, Victims, Violence, Voice |
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November 9, 2009
by Rod Smith
Your brief question leaves many unaddressed variables. That you desire sex might be considered a positive thing in the wake (no cheap pun intended) of your loss. Yet, if you have used sex in the past as an escape, rather than as a means to contributing to a mutual, respectful, and equal relationship, you will be furthering behavior that is ultimately destructive for you. Then, if you adhere to a faith tradition which precludes you from engaging in sex outside of marriage, you might find some short-term relief in sexual behavior, but you will ultimately self-inflict emotional and spiritual discord.
But I will assume you, an adult who has endured a significant loss, are understandably reaching out for love and affection.
Three things:
1. You are not betraying the deceased.
2. You and your faith tradition decide on when is acceptable to you to have sex (it is not up to anyone else).
3. You will take into account that sexual behavior is never purely recreational.
It is impossible to do something so profoundly intimate with your body that doesn’t also impact every other aspect of your emotional and spiritual life.
Posted in Affairs, Anger, Attraction, Boundaries, Communication, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Faith, Friendship, Grace, Grief, Listening, Living together, Love, Manipulation, Marriage, Sex education, Sex matters, Sexual abuse, Sexual compatibility, Voice |
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October 29, 2009
by Rod Smith
“I will not get in your way. You may work where you choose, worship where you choose, and have all the friends you need and want. If you want to further your education I will do all I can to support you. You are absolutely free and do not require my permission for anything. I know the trust that we have developed between us gives me the confidence to know that you will always choose well and wisely, and when and if you do not choose well and wisely, I know your unwise choices do not arise out of an intentional desire to damage yourself, our relationship, or me.”
“I, in turn, will not get in your way. I will create space for our mutual benefit, work hard for our mutual enrichment, and honor the respect the trust we have built up over the years we have known each other. While I know I do not require your permission to enlarge my life through developing my career, and by developing many meaningful friendships, or enjoying a life of discipline and worship, I will willingly use the freedom that is inherently mine for our continued and mutual benefit.”
“Lighthouse” – friend, and reader, develops the theme —: “I will not (covertly) get in your way. I will collaborate with you prior to committing significant time, money, emotional resources and/or physical effort to ensure that our expectations are aligned with our mutually beneficial goals. I will do what I say so your trust in me is earned. When we have not explicitly agreed something, my actions will honor our relationship nonetheless. I will encourage you to uphold your agreements and thank you for your efforts every day regardless of the results. I will engage when reality doesn’t match our expectations so we may learn from the experience, forgive those that failed to keep their word and forget the situation. I dedicate the time to talk with you because it is the exchange of such emotional intimacies that differentiates our deepening love from that of my love for family and friends.” (Thanks, “Lighthouse,” for your valuable and beautiful contribution)
Posted in Attraction, Boundaries, Communication, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Faith, Family, Forgiveness, Friendship, Leadership, Listening, Love, Manipulation, Marriage, Re-marriage, Responsive people, Schnarch, Sex education, Sex matters, Sexual compatibility, Voice |
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August 25, 2009
by Rod Smith
Embracing life and blessing others....
my sister was Facebook. Hardly a birth or birthday on three continents misses Jennifer Arthur’s attention. She remembers wedding anniversaries for at least half of Durban and, now that she is on holiday in Australia, I am sure she gathering friends and addresses and birthdays all over the Central Coast. If you met my sister on a bus between terminals in a busy airport and shared the briefest moment of chitchat you’d be guaranteed a Christmas card from her forever.
She is a living switchboard connecting people whether they like it or not. Family members or old friends, who for whatever reason try to get away, have no hope. She’s onto them – writing, phoning, being so nice they come sprinting back into the fold.
It’s uncanny. She is always “online” and by this I mean “up” and happy. Unlike computers, my sister is never “down.” I have never met a child who didn’t want my sister to be his or her grandmother. She’s “Granny Goose” or just “Goose” all over the place.
Yes. Long before you ever clicked to be someone’s friend on Facebook you were already on my sister’s list. She is just waiting for you to accept her friendship – then she’ll get your snail-mail address and send you a birthday card until you die – after that, and forever, she’ll send “I’m-sorry” cards to all your relatives on the day that was your birthday.
Posted in Friendship, Leadership, Voice, Womanhood |
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July 28, 2009
by Rod Smith
Take up your life
I regularly receive very encouraging mail from men and women who have worked hard, sometimes employing a thought or principle read in this column, to become as happy and productive as possible with their family. Here’s one I received today:
“I am part of a blended family and have been for 17 months. After doing a lot of reading (and with some help from Rod) about coping with issues in our family, we have settled into a wonderful life. I have realised now how very blessed my boyfriend and I are in that we have achieved something so amazing in a short space of time. We are not without our problems like most families but they are small, normal, and easily solved. We have thrown five children into the mix. They fight like cat and dog but also love each other dearly and refer to each other as brothers and sisters. They protect each other and stand by each other and sometimes do unite against my boyfriend and me. So, for those of you in blended families, they can work and bring so much love and joy to everyone in them.”
Posted in Blended families, Boundaries, Children, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Friendship, Grace, Living together, Love, Parenting/Children, Single parenting, Step parenting |
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July 17, 2009
by Rod Smith
Take up your life
and some circumstances make it tougher. Here are three variables for discord and three that will provide a platform of greater integrity:
MAKING IT TOUGHER
1. The baby arrives embodying the hope of salvation from the dismal, ordinary lives of the men and women in the immediate family. “She gives us all a reason to live,” said grandmother* to friends, the baby ensconced in her tender grip. “This one’s going to turn out right. I will make sure of that,” she says only to herself. *Insert grandfather, mother, father, and you have fertile soil for discord and emotional entrapment.
2. The baby arrives and grandparents are well off, while the parents are in a tough financial place. Of course the parents want the best for the child and “stuff” is both needed and given. Even though the grandparents’ generosity might be benign – the platform is healthier when the child arrives and lives within the parents’ budget and is not “subsidized” by extended family. Of course I do not mean “normal” sharing of celebratory gifts.
3. Families can and often will unite or “let bygones be bygones” when a new baby enters the family (especially a first grandchild) but unresolved discord will again surface and the baby will be the (unintended) recipient of unnecessary baggage, having been unable to deliver the family from its conflict.
Three conditions that will provide a platform of greater health and integrity when a new baby enters an extended family:
MAKING IT “EASIER”
1. Naming rights are the sole domain of the parents, and the parents are absolutely free of all expectations to name the baby after anyone living, dead, real, or fictional at the request of, or under pressure from, anyone in the family. [Perhaps you would believe how often this is an issue. “In THIS family ALL the first born boys are named after MY great-great uncle who was the first man to ….. (insert achievement here) ….. so do you want to be IN my will or OUT of my will,” says dad with a warm smile.]
2. The extended family provides meals and support for the new mother and father but does not take the new baby from the parents so “you can get some rest” or “here, I’ve done this before, let me do that for you.” While favors and offers of help can be very necessary and very kind the greater help is to clear the deck of extraneous tasks so the mother and father may be free to be absolutely present with the baby as much as possible. [“Here, I’ll do the shopping for you so YOU can be with the baby,” says auntie, rather than, “Here, I’ll take the baby so YOU can go shopping.”]
3. The baby arrives and joins the family much like (forgive the simple analogy) a car joins the flowing traffic on a well-run busy freeway system. Babies are better off when people are already enjoy fulfilling lives, where the baby does not become the center of the universe, where the child joins, and things continue, rather than bringing life to a standstill for everyone, and then becoming the focal point around which all meaning and purpose is derived.
Posted in Blended families, Children, Communication, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Family, Friendship, Grace |
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July 9, 2009
by Rod Smith
Welcome Tim
President of Growth and Associates, located in Brentwood, California, to Durban today. Tim and I met in Hawaii in 1986 when Tim was a know-it-all 15-year-old striding the university campus where I studied. Tim’s mother worked at the university while Tim strode the campus as if it were his very own creation. Even then he embodied generosity. Quick witted, visionary, Tim always seemed able and willing to develop a means to get what he needed, and a way to get where he wanted to go.
Congratulations, Tim. Not only have you have become the leader, and the teacher of leaders, making all who know you proud, you also offer hope to parents who might be overwhelmed, even intimidated by the zeal, determination, intelligence, and creativity they discern in their offspring.
Author, entrepreneur, and friend, welcome to Durban. I wish I were there to greet you, to haul you off to tea at Mitchell Park with Gordon, my favorite waiter in the world, and then show you Durban’s beauty. I will have to leave that up to those you meet while you are there. Durbanites will show you a good time. It comes as naturally to them as inspiring others does to you.
Posted in Communication, Differentiation, Education, Faith, Friendship, Grace, Leadership, Listening |
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