August 22, 2023

Gratitude’s Reward

by Rod Smith

A grateful heart will lift your spirit, shift your lens from what you think you lack or need, to recognition of all you do have and enjoy.

A grateful heart will lighten your load and offer you helpful objectivity.

A grateful heart will sharpen your vision to see the miracles in the immediate – like the shifts in seasons, the births of neighbors’ babies, the happiness you see in a child when she runs to be embraced by her daddy. 

A grateful heart will alleviate the necessity for sarcasm and cynicism as you find yourself expressing gratitude.

Gratitude will open your eyes to sunsets and sunrises in new ways, to regard each as an opportunity to be thankful for a good day ending and the arrival of fresh starts and new opportunities. 

Gratitude welcomes the noises and interruptions of children, even other people’s children,  and the elderly, even other people’s elderly, rather than considers both an irritation or interruption.

A grateful person is lavish with thank you-s and praise and enjoyment (in ways that are contagious) despite trying circumstances and, oddly, the gratitude has a way of rewarding those who spread it and rewards the grateful with even more for which to be grateful.

Nate’s first day home – May 2002

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August 21, 2023

Fear’s Intent

by Rod Smith

“Perfect love casts out fear” reads a phrase from sacred writings. 

As a close friend pointed out, “fear casts out love.”

Indeed. 

But fear is even more pernicious than casting out love (acceptance, inclusion, empathy).

Fear twists. 

Distorts. 

Fear prevents and  perverts.  

Fear hi-jacks thinking. 

It injects toxins, destructive toxins into what may have been a healthy  thinking process. Possessing no limitations or boundaries, fear invades, dominates, floods every nook and cranny of the psyche (in people and groups and sadly, even churches) and leaves no room for reasonableness, compassion, empathy or love. 

It ultimately renders the fearful inhumane.

Jesus oft’ repeated “Do not be afraid,” 

He said it when His followers were at points of potential high-reactivity and much  under stress, duress.

When anxstress. 

Anxstress is a term one of my sons coined when he was about 8 years old and we have used it ever since. 

I do not believe this repeated  Admonition from Jesus was only words of comfort. They were much more. They were words of comfort but also words of correction, encouragement, and protection. They were words of protection from what fear does and does so well. 

 It destroys. 

Fear works from the inside and destroys people and then it destroys friendships and deeper relationships, even long term family relationships, even churches  

“Do not be afraid” were much more than words of comfort.

Jesus was doing His best to keep us humane.

One of my very favorite pieces of art. Secured from a street artist in Moscow.

Posted in Boundaries, Communication, Faith | 1 Comment »

August 20, 2023

Hopes for the week ahead (and beyond)…..

by Rod Smith

May you meet gentle and warm hearted people and be warm hearted and gentle toward yourself and towards others. There appears to be so much fury and anger and so many people living on edge. May you and I offer a counter experience and offer others a place of welcome and safety. In doing so we may not change the world or make a shift or dent in our immediate environments but we will lift and encourage the hearts of a few.

May you be firm in your decisions and be confident in your dealings with yourself and others. There is a vast difference between confidence and arrogance and, while they are often confused, may you and I have only confidence. Inner-confidence permits others to take a stand, for themselves. Confidence will assist you and me to live deliberately and avoid victim thinking. 

May you be generous and kind in a world that seems to promote selfishness, greed, indifference and even promote unkindness. This does not mean we have to give beyond our means or be un-thinking in our giving of time and resources. Wise giving of cash, talent, and time empowers others. Unwise giving of cash, talent and time will exhaust and deplete you and me.

Posted in Boundaries, Communication, Differentiation, Education, Faith, Family, Family Systems Theory, Forgiveness, Friendship, Grace | 1 Comment »

August 15, 2023

I just want to be happy…..

by Rod Smith

“I just want to be happy.”

I hear it over and over again – usually with a little whine in the tone.

It’s often whimpered as if happiness is some sort of award or a condition that may descend upon a person who is in the right place at the right time.

Truth is, you have more of a chance of being struck by lightning than you have being struck by happiness.

Happiness has no victims. It’s a by-product. It grows out of purposeful living.

Happiness remains out of control – even to the rich and powerful.

You may have noticed its penchant for playing hide and seek with the rich and powerful.

It’s yours when you fight and win the good fight over trying to be happy. It’s yours when you engage purposes greater than yourself, your pleasures, and appetites. The road to happiness is often paved with difficulty, things you may think will never deliver any joy.

It hides from the lazy, the self-indulgent, the entitled, the spoiled, the whiner, but embraces those seeking justice and authenticity and doing what is good and right by others.

Ironically happiness often escapes the rich and makes its home with the poor, the humble.

Oddly, it’s one thing that doesn’t, “follow the money.”

Posted in Communication, Education, Family, Friendship, Grace | 2 Comments »

August 14, 2023

Like him…..

by Rod Smith

“My son (almost finished with “top” high school) has very good marks and is a top achiever in sport and yet he is totally unmotivated – and it is getting worse. He says there is no future in this country for boys like him. He was very motivated until a few years ago when he started talking about going to England and trying to make his future there even though we have no connections with England. It’s getting so bad that he is starting to want to miss days at school. What can I do? I am a single mom and he is my only child.”

The “like him” is difficult for me to understand. I will need more explanation about how he views himself. Nonetheless, begin with visits to his doctor and his school counselors. Try to get a health clearance and try to establish if he is facing any unexpected pressures at school or in any other facet of his life. If the coast is clear (he is medically well and he’s not facing unusual pressure at school) on these fronts you may want to point out to your son that there are probably many young men “like him” who are wildly successful and the challenge is to be one of them.

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August 12, 2023

Spirituality

by Rod Smith

“Spirituality” is hard to define and to pin down.

What does it really mean? 

Who is really spiritual, who is not? 

What does it mean to say “she is a really spiritual person”? 

When I hear things like, “Mary is dating this really spiritual guy” I can’t help imagining someone who floats or speaks in soothing tones about things eternal and does so with dreamy, distant eyes. 

I’d suggest our spirituality, yours and mine, may be focussed upon matters eternal, but if it is authentic, it will be anchored firmly in the immediate. 

Our “spirituality,” like it or not, becomes evident in all of our relationships, from intimate to platonic. It is seen and felt and known, here and now, in all of our relationships and attitudes.

You know you have met a “spiritual” person when he or she treats all people with dignity and respect.

You know you have met a “spiritual “ person when you meet someone for whom kindness and care are default positions whether a person encountered is “useful” to them or not. 

You will know you have met a spiritual person when you encounter someone who is unfazed by the perceived rank or power or wealth of others and who regards all human encounters as holy.

Posted in Difficult Relationships | 1 Comment »

August 5, 2023

Tuesday this week

by Rod Smith

The array of twenty or more police cars, some with their lights still turning, had my full attention as I approached a busy city intersection.

Then I saw the young man, shoulders hunched, his hands tucked between his knees as if asleep on the street, dead.

The fist-sized red blotch in the center of his white t-shirt, had the boy been walking, may have passed for designer art.

At the time I drove by there was no crime-scene tape to keep people away but there was no one near him. No one was checking on him, trying to tend to him or comfort him.

A curtain of horror silenced onlookers, people of all ages who lined the periphery of this scene.

His aloneness shook me as much as the knowledge that he was dead, gone, no more.

Minutes before he was surely running, and now, nothing: no breath, movement, dreams, company or future.

Nothing.

And I could not fathom the depth of pain and sorrow that would soon be his mother’s, father’s, brothers’ and sisters’ and all who loved and taught and coached him.

He’d fallen, face away from where I passed by and so I never saw his face.

Where he’d been struck, marked by the red splash between the shoulders of his slender frame, perfectly in the center of his back, is what I did see.

And, and continue to see, over and over again.

May all who loved and all who knew this young man (19 years old – I read in a news report on reaching home) find comfort and peace.

RIP, A. Ray K.

(NOT FOR THE MERCURY)

Posted in Family, Grace, Grief | 1 Comment »

July 31, 2023

Home

by Rod Smith

“I’m home. From work” reads my son Nate’s text. 

A few minutes later, also from Nate (21) comes, “I’ve let Duke out. I am going to Muncie.”

“Why?” I replied.

“Buy clothes,” he writes. 

Seconds later Thulani texts from New York City: “Checking in. Alaina and I are going to dinner. I’ll let you know when I’m home. Talk soon.”

My sons are far from perfect but when it comes to keeping me “in the loop” they both get an A-plus.

I am deeply grateful for this, knowing several parents who seldom (or never) hear from their adult sons and I know a few who seldom hear from their daughters.

I value every text and every call, even the calls that are requests for cash. I try really hard to take every attempted contact as I am steeped in the knowledge of how unusual it is to hear daily from adult sons.

There are times I am traveling and both boys will text me to say he’s home from wherever.

The most “at home” feelings flood me when I know both my sons are safe and home, no matter where in the world I may be.

“I am too,” I’ll reply.

Posted in Boundaries, Children, Communication, Education, Faith, Family | 1 Comment »

July 30, 2023

What if…..

by Rod Smith

Half my lifetime ago, and it wasn’t easy for me to do the calculations, I moved to the United States.

I was alone; nervous, excited. 

My inner-dialogue repeated Robert Frost’s “Way leads to way” from the middle of “The Road not Taken.”

The closing couplet annoys me only for its misuse and its bumper-sticker common usage. For me the real gold of the poem are the four words “Way leads to way.”  

There are times I wonder how things would have been had I chosen to remain in Durban. What if I had moved to Australia?

New Zealand? 

What if I had gone to England as some of my cousins did?

Knowledge of what might have been is conjecture, often foolish, often the result of blaming others or self-blame or the fruit of grief. No one can know what may have been around a corner not taken, an ignored opportunity on a diverging path, a ‘plane ticket unpurchased, a form ignored or lost, an embassy too difficult to reach or avoided. 

One can know what happened. 

One can know what is happening. 

One can recognize the peculiar, unpredictable, mostly wonderful journey that has unfolded. 

In a score of plan-your-future seminars I could never have predicted or planned how things have transpired, how wheels have turned, how events collided to place my sons and me (would I have had children at all?) in this unusual context. The Midwest of the USA is about as far from home in every imaginable manner, but a context brimming with spectacular experiences and opportunities.

I have on occasions seized the day but wasted many. 

I’ve mourned and I rejoiced, hurt others and been hurt by others. 

I’ve used and been used. 

Shakespeare says King Lear (poor soul) is “a man more sinned against than sinning” but it is not a label I can claim.  

When I have endured the pain of a cut-off from a treasured relationship I have tried for reconciliation as best as I know how. Some attempts have been successful but mostly not. I expect I will take some pain – the emotional pain of loss of treasured friends – to the grave and probably with a convincing brave front. 

My choices have resulted in many beautiful outcomes, and some, not.

Way indeed, leads to way.

Thank you Robert Frost.

Posted in Boundaries, Children, Communication, Differentiation | 5 Comments »

July 28, 2023

What some face…..

by Rod Smith

The observation that one person can never quite know what another is enduring has been vividly true for me this week. In the past few days I have had one-to-one encounters with:

A woman in her late sixties who works night-shift five nights a week, who, with her sister, has given a home to two young children (6 and 10 years old) who had to be forcibly removed from their mother’s home in a city several hundred kilometers away.

A man who works two jobs but must also sell his plasma at the blood bank three times a week to make ends meet. 

A woman whose son, 3 years ago, ended his own life at 15-years-old after having spent a good day with his family and gave no hint of the pain he was apparently enduring.

A woman who moved five hundred miles away from her husband to keep herself and her two young children safe.

A teenager who watched both his father and an uncle killed in a violent inner-city exchange of fire – who then divulged when I asked him that he himself “always carries” a weapon.

A teenager who revealed that every time he leaves his house he takes all his valuables and papers with him just in case he’s told by a relative he can’t come back.

My current reading

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