Archive for ‘Love’

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December 20, 2023

A note to my sons — shared also with you — about love

by Rod Smith

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.

Go into all the world…..

Posted in Attraction, Boundaries, Children, Communication, Differentiation, Education, Faith, Forgiveness, Friendship, Grace, Leadership, Listening, Love, Trust, Voice, YWAM | 2 Comments »

July 22, 2023

Covered this week…….

by Rod Smith

IOWA

Dear Participant:

I have had the joy of being with you this past week: several of you shared meals with me and we met in ways I know I will remember. I hope you will, too. Thank you. Given the time I would have enjoyed such an opportunity with each of you. During your first session with me I told you I would give you my notes from each of my talks. If you read this letter today or in ten years it is all ok with me. People do what they are ready to do. Keep them. See how well they age. Remind yourself that I repeatedly said I am addressing the future you.

Day One I tried to tell you how unique and beautiful you are. This is not an older adult attempting to convince you of something adults generally want you to believe. As I said I really have never met  – 50 countries and thousands of people later – anyone, anywhere who is not beautiful. Yes, I have met people who have done really ugly things and done a few myself, but, you (we) are beautiful. Get to know any human by listening, really listening, and I believe you will soon agree with me.  We talked about leadership: I said Leadership is a Function, a role, not a position. If your motive in becoming a leader is to see your name at the top of a list or to be the boss, your distorted motive will be your constant hurdle. Leadership is about who and what you are and what you do within a community. It is not about status. If it is the status you seek, your drive for recognition will persistently contaminate your leadership. To lead others effectively it is necessary to know what you are good at and what you are not good at. Work at your strengths. Accommodate your weaknesses. Both are yours for the long-haul.  

I encouraged you to consistently define yourself. If you don’t, someone will. Resist the natural anxious urge to define others. Become an expert in your own behavior. Resist the natural (anxious) urge to be an expert in the behavior of others, especially those who annoy you. Listen more than you speak. Make sure you are hearing, not waiting to talk. I closed saying Self-Leadership has by far the greatest impact on how effective you are as a leader. If you can’t lead yourself you can effectively lead nothing and no one.

Day Two I emphasized your (and my) uniqueness. I urged you to find within the depths of where your hearts, minds, spirits, souls meet (see it as a kind of Venn diagram) the beautiful “place” generally referred to as the SELF. YourSELF is beautiful, it’s as unique as your fingerprints, your voice, and your personality. It is shaped by your family history, your DNA, by enduring joyful and nurturing experiences. It is shaped also by trauma, by loss, grief and so much else. This SELF is resilient. The Self wants to be well. It self-repairs (given conducive conditions). It is not Selfish to find and love and know yourSelf. I would suggest it is selfish NOT to. People who avoid Self-Awareness because they consider it selfISH are usually people who put stress on leadership teams and on friendships and battle with boundary confusion – “I am I, you are you, we are we, Let’s not confuse the three” – Remember? It’s corny BUT if you live it, it will save you a LOT of pain and therapist bills!

Day Three I emphasized your God-given desire for Autonomy.  It’s part of your humanity. To desire self-directedness (AUTONOMY – SPACE, ROOM TO MOVE, freedom to be yourself) comes with your birth package. When it is unfulfilled – or ignored – you will be discontent. You have a similar God-given desire for Intimacy. This is part of your humanity. We all want some closeness, to belong, to be part of. Accepting that these Dueling Desires live within you and recognizing they are present in all the people will make it easier for you to welcome both into their legitimate place within your life. You (and I) really grow up when you (we) meet these needs in yourself AND understand that others are similarly driven. When your best friend chooses to be alone (wants Autonomy) it is not a rejection of you (necessarily) if you, at the same time, want Intimacy. Remember, you cannot LOVE and CONTROL the same person.    

This afternoon (Thursday) and Day Four, I left you with eight things I would tell my younger self:

  1. Save, and never touch, one third of all the money you earn. Few people regret having saved from an early age. Few things upset adulthood as well as financial pressures. 
  2. Honor your family and extended family relationships above all other relationships. If you are a brother or a son, a niece or an aunt, be the best one you can be. 
  3. Learn to live without blaming others. While others are indeed imperfect, blaming others for anything will seldom get you to where you really want to go. There are exceptions which I made clear (I hope). 
  4. Forgive, truly forgive, but remember. To forgive and forget is often foolish and even impossible. Remembering is not the same as holding a grudge. There are exceptions which I made clear (I hope). 
  5. Find your VOICE and hold onto it. Finding your voice means figuring out what you want your life to say. Only a small portion of finding your voice has to do with actual words.  
  6. Every unfortunate or bad thing that happens to you will ultimately offer you a choice. Will it become SEED (for growth) or STONE (resentment or hardness)? Seed will be most helpful to you. The choice will always be yours.  
  7. Pursue (chase) education even over romance. Few people regret having a sound education. 
  8. Gain understanding about your power, the power that comes with being human. Treasure it; Protect it, Deploy it. Use it for its intended purpose only.

I have loved being with you. Thank you. I especially enjoyed the Talent Show and the party. I loved watching your amazing capacity to have fun and I particularly enjoyed seeing some of you who arrived earlier this week appearing shy and withdrawn having the time of your lives.

Rod

Dad, Uber Driver, International Speaker and Newspaper Columnist 

07-20-2023 

Posted in Addictions, Adolescence, Anxiety, Attraction, Blended families, Boundaries, Business, Children, Communication, Differentiation, Education, Faith, Family, Family Systems Theory, Forgiveness, Friendship, Grace, Grief, High maintenance relationships, Leadership, Listening, Love, Parenting/Children, Recovery, Responsive people, Space, Therapeutic Process, Triangles, Trust | Leave a Comment »

June 27, 2023

Home

by Rod Smith

A few weeks ago I told people I was going home. 

I was referring to South Africa.

This evening I will board a Delta flight and, yes, I’m going home. This time it’s to a small town in Indiana.

Sometimes people ask me about my small town in Indiana, “what’s it like”, and I say it’s like Mooi River in the 1960s but without the mooi and without the river and without a mountain or ocean within several hundred miles.

This said, it’s home.

My one son is there, the dogs will be excited to see me, and the mayor will wave and ask me where I’ve been as he stops at the four-way stop and sees me walking Maggie and Duke.

I know that I’ll see Rick from Rick’s Brakes and Tires (yes, that’s how it’s spelled) at church on Sunday and he’ll tell me it’s time, referring to an oil-change on my car.

A few interested friends will ask me about my trip home and I’ll tell them about the beauty of the Western Cape and how I loved buying my triplet great nephews and neice a late afternoon Wimpy lunch after a shopping spree for books at Exclusive Books in La Lucia.

“Yes.” I’ll say, “it’s good to be home.”

Posted in Communication, Education, Faith, Family, Friendship, Grace, Love | 1 Comment »

June 17, 2023

To my sons on Father’s Day – given we are in different countries today

by Rod Smith

To my sons on Father’s Day

It is a pleasure to be your dad. 

You were “easy” babies, fabulous toddlers and terrific young children. 

You were hilarious preteens and mostly cooperative teenagers. 

Now, you are productive, employed, adults. 

I have written to readers far and wide – often to severe resistance – my belief that parenting ends. 

While I will always be your dad, you may have recognized that some years ago, wise or unwise on my part, believing I had imparted all that was necessary, I “pulled back” and gradually stopped parenting each of you. You have been making almost all your own decisions for years and have both been rather good at it.

Now, we are three men (mostly) enjoying our shared relationships and one of us happens to also be your dad. 

As far as possible I will be available for you. I probably will “jump in” if I discern a dire need to do so, but generally I will resist any urge to impose my need to parent upon you.

I love you, I will seek your highest good and love all whom you love. Know this: each of you in your own way saved my life. You have made this dad really appreciate Father’s Day and I thank you.

The day they first met

Posted in Adolescence, Boundaries, Children, Communication, Education, Faith, Family, Friendship, Grace, Love, Parenting/Children, Single parenting, Teenagers, Trust | 1 Comment »

May 6, 2023

Things to try….

by Rod Smith

Things to try for a few days in the hopes will soon see they are life-style habits worthy of developing:

Plan your day. 

Plan who you will seek to empower and encourage. 

Write (using a pencil and paper) a few ideas as to how you will empower others no matter what your station in life. 

Oddly, the more you plan, the more you will allow for a serendipitous life. 

Besides, getting yourself ready for a great day will sharpen your eyes to recognize when great days come your way.

Plan your day as if planning a great day is in your power to do so. 

Write a few notes to yourself about how much money you will spend, how much you will try to save. 

Plan what and whom you will avoid because some things suck the life out of you. 

As you plan your day, remind yourself that you are not all-powerful and that things happen to derail the best made plans. This does not mean a plan is not worth making.

Plan your responses to tough or challenging circumstances and situations so that you are unlikely to spend the day in a reactive mode with fight or flight as your defaults. Write a few notes to yourself about what you will or will not say and whom you will and will not engage.

Posted in Anxiety, Blended families, Boundaries, Children, Communication, Differentiation, Education, Faith, Family, Family Systems Theory, Forgiveness, Friendship, Grace, High maintenance relationships, Leadership, Listening, Love, Space, Therapeutic Process, Triangles, YWAM | 1 Comment »

March 26, 2023

Fully adult?

by Rod Smith

I believe we are fully adulthood when: 

We can be authentic with all people, including our parents, treating all others respectfully as equals, despite rank, position or the apparent lack of it.

We respect mutuality and equality, and want both in all of our relationships.

We have acknowledged our hurts, grieved appropriately, and decided to live to the fullest. 

We can delay gratification.

We have stopped blaming others for the condition of our lives, especially our parents. 

Ambiguity, mystery, and uncertainty are allies, not enemies. We can hold seemingly conflicting thoughts and beliefs without becoming unsettled.

We are able to recognize when and how we were victimized but no longer think, speak, feel, or behave like victims.

We have a small group of people to whom we talk about almost everything, but feel no compulsion to tell anyone everything.

We stop apologizing for things for which we could never be held responsible and efficiently clear up misunderstandings. 

We can see that all things are related and are therefore hesitant to apply quick solutions to complex problems. We respect the law of unexpected consequences.

We learn to appreciate and love “the moment” rather than live as if we are perpetually waiting for a day when things will be better.

We can perceive when others do not have our best interests at heart yet remain appropriately engaged with such people.

Posted in Blended families, Boundaries, Communication, Differentiation, Education, Family, Friendship, Grace, Leadership, Listening, Love, Parenting/Children, Triangles | Leave a Comment »

March 25, 2023

Ubuntu – seeking your help

by Rod Smith

Help me write about this please, fellow southern Africans…. .. help me capture a concept…… correct me where I’m incorrect.

Of course such ideals are commercialized and misunderstood and misused. Such perverse uses does not render the initial ideals as invalid:

Ubuntu is a Zulu word.

Many Zulus, and descendants of Zulus of southern Africa hold sacred the ancient concept of Ubuntu. It captures a lore of hospitality, openness, and the power of community, the necessity of the individual to live within community. The individual is empowered by the community and does his or her share to empower others.

Ubuntu is an ideal way of life to which a Zulu may aspire.

It means we make each other. I am more who I am when I am connected to you. You are more who you are when we acknowledge our mutual need for each other. We can do more together than we can do alone.

Ubuntu has little room or accommodation for the lone genius. Consensus is valued. As far as possible, all voices are attempted to be heard. Age is deeply respected.  It’s community-above-self, as a way of life.

No one is “thrown away” or written off.

Posted in Boundaries, Communication, Forgiveness, Friendship, Grace, Leadership, Listening, Living together, Love | 1 Comment »

March 18, 2023

Something a little longer for Sunday….. 

by Rod Smith

One thing I notice about the parables of Jesus and other favorite New Testament events, even Jesus one-liners, is that just as soon as I think I understand the parable, the event, the one-liner, it does a number on me.

Refuses to be conquered.

Reveals I’m scratching the surface in understanding, let alone application.

I know this to be true as I study Jesus’ desert trials, His relationship with Peter, betrayals, the terrors of Gethsemane, The Transfiguration, The Woman caught in adultery, “love your enemies,” to name a few. 

For 10 years (at least) these events in Jesus’ life and many of His sayings have refused to let me go and keep offering me more and more opportunities for understanding and for application.

Who really knows what Jesus meant when he said “a seed must die to bear fruit” (John 12:24) and I am not talking botany?

Every believer worth his or her salt has a go at “unpacking” (my least favorite verb I hear in Christendom) this but I think most attempts at interpretation fail to grasp the larger application of the metaphor, let alone how the “death” occurs and how it applies to you and to me.

 Let me know if you think you know. 

Parables, if we are willing to resist the thought that we already know all there is to know about any one of them, will unfold meaning for years and go deeper and deeper into the willing heart with revelation.

Thinking I know becomes a blockage. My blockage. Time after time reading them I go back to what I already know, which keeps new understanding waiting in the wings for an opportunity to get a moment on stage.

Another thing I find blocks my learning is when I become an insight addict and seek insight and more insight into Scripture but resist or refuse to put the insights into the daily-life action.

Insight, without accompanying action, is not only useless, it blocks further revelation. Then, if I get any insight, refusing to act on what I see becomes a ditch into which my insight tumbles and I become another of millions upon millions of Christains who are incredibly insightful who are very willing to talk, often endlessly, about what they see in whatever be the Biblical topic. And that’s about it.

My gosh, have I met some insightful and loquacious Christians?

Certainty, too, seals shut possibilities of growth and learning. 

It stops discovery. Certainty block’s revelation. 

I find embracing ambiguity and possibility for behavior change opens the floodgates to new understanding and new ways to be in the world.

Understanding Scripture requires change. Transformation. Understanding Scripture will demand it be more than an academic exercise and will seek to influence who and how we are as men and women in our various roles in our various communities and within our families.   

I have read the “Prodigal Son” many many times and have often thought I have a reasonable take on Jesus’ point. My perspectives change if I read it as if I am the Older Brother when my default has always been to read it as the younger, returning son, the “good” guy. When reading the parable from the Older Brother’s point of view I have no problem understanding why he has an issue with the upstart’s return and why he avoids the party. If I read it from the perspective of the Father it doesn’t take long before I am reduced to tears. I think I know that kind of love, at least as much as I am able. My sons have been trying to teach me about it since they entered the world and broke into my heart.

Shifting my point of view when I read “The Good Samaritan” also allows for new insights. I start from the perspective of the “questioning” lawyer. Then I move on through Jesus’ list of characters and end up reading it as the victim who receives assistance from the Samaritan.

When I read it as The Samaritan, I am reduced to tears.

In contrast to the “trained” and the professionals, the ones who should know, the rejected one is the loving one, the one who was never considered a neighbor, the “other,” is the one who goes the extra mile and loves his enemy and models neighborliness.

Have a fabulous Sunday.

Posted in Betrayal, Boundaries, Communication, Differentiation, Education, Faith, Family, Forgiveness, Friendship, Grace, Leadership, Listening, Love, Responsive people, Voice, Womanhood | Leave a Comment »

March 2, 2023

The gift of Fridays

by Rod Smith

I like to think of every Friday as a good one, no matter how trying a week may have been. Fridays announce the fire-break, declare the rest-stop, the opportunity for the breather that’s just around the corner. 

Fridays are for letting things go, the cumulative stresses of all that’s come at me from Monday. I hope it’ll be the same for you.

Fridays are for a few handwritten notes in the mail, notes of affirmation and thanks, not necessarily for what’s occurred in the past few days but an expression of thanks to those who’ve got me to this point. Consider joining me, it’s amazing how good it feels to write without a screen. 

Fridays are for re-envisioning the shape of the future, not only next week and six months ahead, but my role is in creating a great tomorrow for my children’s children’s children. We really do, like it or not, for good and for ill and everything in between, invest in the future.

Fridays are plan-my-weekend reading opportunities and so I rather informally gather the books and articles I’m hoping to start or finish.  I confess, this is an ongoing challenge but remains refreshing because it is unfinished. 

Fridays are for scheduling one-on-one phone-free, screen-free time over the weekend with our most intimate circle of family and friends.

I recommend this fabulous book to you….

Posted in Communication, Differentiation, Faith, Family, Forgiveness, Friendship, Grace, Leadership, Listening, Love, Meditation, Responsive people, Space, Therapeutic Process, Voice | Leave a Comment »

May 13, 2020

Prayer upon rising

by Rod Smith

May I…..

  • be a source of healing and not hurt or injury.

  • learn to be more patient and loving with the people closest to me.

  • value other people more than I value 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, and 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 and 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.

Posted in Anxiety, Blended families, Boundaries, Communication, Differentiation, Difficult Relationships, Faith, Forgiveness, Friendship, Grace, Leadership, Listening, Love, Marriage, Recovery, Space, Therapeutic Process, Victims, Womanhood, Young Love | Leave a Comment »

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