A week later I can think and write — this one time – more objectively about my son, Thulani’s, wedding to Alaina. The lavish event, his in-laws resisted no expense, included 175 guests, was as perfect as I can imagine.
The saxophonist and pianist played a soothing “Have I Told You Lately That I Love You” – Van Morrison’s version was Thulani’s first favorite piece of music, a smidgen ahead of anything Barney –and I was first to walk down the aisle of the historical landmark church to begin and officite my son’s wedding.
On reaching the lectern I turned to face the packed sanctuary.
There were men and women who’d walked with me through every phase of both my sons’ lives and hundreds of members of the bride’s friends, family and extended family.
The groom entered and, after his slow walk down the aisle, he threw his arms around me. Then came his brother, Nathanael, followed by 7 groomsmen. The stunning eight bridesmaids entered one-by-one to the delight of the expressive diverse congregation.
The sanctuary doors closed and we waited.
When the music changed, the congregation stood, and the bride entered arm-in-arm with her dad, and at the end of their walk, the bride’s mother joined her husband for a coordinated kiss and both placed Alaina’s hands into my son’s hands the bride and groom turned to face life-long family and friends, many of whom have loved and supported each from birth.
There is nothing like a good listener for feeding the soul.
A good listener determines there will be no distractions — no phones, text checking, no dings or app notifications or glances to see the time — and will offer complete and uninterrupted and undiluted attention to the speaker.
A good listener listens, says very very little except may offer occasional brief words of encouragement like “tell me more” or “go back to the beginning if you want” or “go into as much detail as you think will be helpful” or “could you tell me that again so it’s clearer for me.”
The good listener knows listening and any attempts at multitasking — even the most subtle — distract the speaker and obliterate listening. A good listener gets all the potential impediments to listening out of the way before sitting down to listen.
The good listener knows a listener’s inner-noise —- things the listener is refusing to hear or address from within — will emerge and sabotage attempts at hearing others and so addresses unresolved personal matters as much as possible so others may encounter a clear-headed listener.
The good listener does not formulate replies or develop counterpoints while listening and does not one-up the speaker with the listener’s own experiences whether they may appear to the listener to be helpful or not.
A good listener sees, hears, knows, acknowledges the speaker by listening — the most powerful and tangible expression of love.
The “outside world” can be a dangerous place for children.
Another exceedingly dangerous environment for children can also be their own homes. While medicine cabinets, cleaning materials and unlocked swimming pool gates are a legitimate threat to the child-safety, the unguarded mouth of an angry adult can inflict grievous harm to a child.
A vigilant parent might install childproof locks yet leave a totally exposed web of anger in every room of the house. Unresolved anger in a parent, expressed through unpredictable displays of frustration and annoyance or rage, can quite effectively sabotage a childhood and even pass a baton of anxiety and rage to unborn generations. It is in their own homes that children might be at most in danger. At home they learn about trust, and exercise the most trust. It is at home they will learn, or fail to learn, by watching and experiencing, almost everything they will ever know about love.
It is at home they will make the most mistakes and receive the most affirmation and correction. It is at home that children will learn about fear and hurt and rejection and empathy and love and acceptance.
Children are constantly seeing, feeling, learning, trying, sometimes succeeding, sometimes failing, watching, waiting and taking it all in.
Monitoring diets is a crucial aspect of childhood health. Another “diet” is the calm, security, predictability and warmth healthy parents can provide.
If you have the opportunity to see “The King of Broken Things” run at it.
There is a difference between peacekeeping and peacemaking.
In a troubled emotional environment peacekeeping saps energy and can be a never-ending task.
Peacemaking lays groundwork for authentic peace to prevail.
Peacekeepers work hard to keep the tensions from rising and work at pretending that nothing is amiss.
Peacekeepers avoid conflict. Their reward is the semblance of tranquility, the demise of integrity and escalation of anxiety.
Peacemakers invite necessary conflict knowing there is no other pathway toward understanding between warring people and groups.
Peacekeepers can endure fake “peace” leading to feelings of being called or anointed while they tiptoe through minefields they pretend don’t exist.
Peacekeepers apparently “enjoy” feelings of martyrdom. How else would they rationalize the accompanying stress of trying to hide or tame the proverbial elephant in the room?
Peacekeepers often see their role as “spiritual” and “humble” because they endure without “saying anything.”
Peacemakers value authentic peace more than its distorted parody. The peace that exists between people who possess the courage to endure conflict, for the sake of lasting peace, is like pure gold when compared with its counterfeit cousin.
Move with courage toward lasting peace.
Assume your legitimate role as a peacemaker rather than avoid conflict in order to keep a semblance of peace that is not worth having.
No matter how good or qualified your therapist — therapy will be of no help:
If you’re seeking help with your intimate relationship but you’re living with your mind made up, bags packed, and a heart full of blame and complaints.
It’s therapy, not arm-wrestling.
If you’re having an extramarital affair and you want to improve your relationship with your spouse so your divorce can be cordial.
It’s therapy, not help with deception and manipulation.
If you’re coming to change or influence a relationship you’re not directly a part of, for instance, you want to fix your son’s marriage or you want you husband to call his mom more often.
It’s therapy, not human chess.
If you’re committed to treating your adult sons and daughters as if they’re children and wonder why they resist visiting or phoning you.
It’s therapy, not guilt-tripping.
If you’re hoping for help to change the political views of people with whom you do not agree.
It’s therapy, not magic.
If you want the lazy to be hardworking, the harsh to be gentle, the stingy to be generous, and the unforgiving to find mercy.
Men and women who discover such radical transformation do so because they grow tired of their selfish, rigid, alienating and arrogant ways, and, in humility, find the courage for change.
It’s not therapy, it’s when desperation meets the Divine.
“I’m 28. I will marry a wonderful woman in August. My mother brainwashed me with venom about my father for 24 years. He lives nearby. I hardly know him. I think I want him at my wedding. She is threatening to boycott if he is invited or there.”
It’s your wedding. Except for your mother’s friends whom you want included, the invitation list (under these toxic conditions) is none of her business. Allow your mother hostage power now means you can expect her to try to wield similar threatening power over other matters in your married life.
The good news is you have several months to complete important work with both parents.
Contact dad. Invite him into the slow, deliberate process of deeper, appropriate, father-son intimacy. (Use your own words). Suggest a bi-weekly breakfast and tell him there will be no talk whatsoever about your mother. After a few breakfasts include the “wonderful woman.”
Stand up to your mother. Tell her you want her at the wedding but it is an invitation she may always decline. Include her on other plans – the challenge is to not alienate your mother but to clearly define your response to her controlling ways.
Defining yourself to both your parents will do more for your long-term fulfillment than anything else you do.
I am very aware that people don’t analyze their connections in the manner I’ve described below. We’d have healthier communities and families if we did!
Will you search with me when I am searching, stand with me when I am standing, and drop to your knees with me in prayer if and when I need it? I will try to do the same for you.
Will you stand up to me with firmness and kindness when my many blind spots are blocking my thinking? I will try to do the same for you.
Will you join me and examine our connection (as casual acquaintances, colleagues, neighbors, partners, or spouses) so that we remain mutual and equal and respectful no matter the degree or significance of our connection?
Will you take time to listen to me? I will try to take time to listen to you?
Will you allow me my quirks and eccentricities and try to regard them as interesting rather than regard them as things you wish were different about me?
Will you seek my highest good as far as you are able given the knowledge we have about each other? I will try to do the same for you.
Will you try to be as unafraid of me as I try to be unafraid of you?
“With regards to your article of 10/7/2013: Times are tough right now globally. We here in Durban have not been spared. Allowing someone into your home for a month is well within the spirit of Ubuntu.”
Allowing an adult woman and her mother into ones home for a month would indeed express the spirit of hospitality, generosity, and openness typically associated with the spirit of Ubuntu – if both the decision makers in the home were comfortable in seeking to offer such hospitality.
The husband’s spirit of Ubuntu surely loses its power and meaning, and is perhaps therefore not an expression of Ubuntu at all, when it is expressed at the cost of his wife’s well being.
Hospitality, like generosity, and charity, begins at home.
1. You experience greater OBJECTIVITY and can “see” your most important relationships as if looking at them through someone else’s eyes.
2. Despite any pain, any trauma, any uncertainty, you can see some HUMOUR in what you are experiencing even if it is short lived.
3. You are progressively gathering a small community of friends who know everything (or almost everything) about you and their SUPPORT is becoming easier to trust.
4. You are seeing with greater and greater CLARITY what are and what are not your responsibilities within your most important relationships.
5.”No” comes easier and it is not accompanied by guilt. “Yes” is your response when you really want what you agree to. You begin to BELIEVE the words you say. Your words reflect you, your desires, and are not said from guilt or the impulse to keep the peace or make others happy.
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