“Dad, you know you and Nate often call me at the same time,” remarked my son Thulani.

I found this amusing since it is a phenomenon I have observed but not in the manner he intended. They do it to me. Often. It is as if they plan it and calls or texts arrive from both sons when I cannot take either calls or respond to texts. Both sons can be in different parts of the USA and I in a third, distant location, and they will both text or call at the same moment.

I could probably write an analysis of why this occurs, but I won’t. I will only comment that there is an inexplicable, irrational connection among us; a bonding, sometimes a binding, and often it’s blinding. Reaching out to me are expressions of love (sometimes) and anxiety (often) and a search for safety and predictability (occasionally) even when the call or the text is spurred by blinding frustrations or irritations. Also, it pleases me when I find out my sons talk to each other even if their communications appear to be short-tempered or scathingly playful. That they connect without me, without my suggestion of provocation, is heart-warming. It gives me hope to know that they are friends and their friendship may continue after I am no longer in the picture.

There is a Crippling Cohort within many clients: Blame, Regret, Unresolved Conflicts, Uncried Tears and Unlived Dreams. I capitalize the labels – I am sure there are more – for these five live within as alive, functioning beings.

They rarely show their unified front but prefer to visit their host as individuals when risk and adventure are required or when new possibilities offer promise. They pop up. They remind the host about past failures. They sneak from behind the curtains of memory and wave to remind of times when things did not work, when plans failed, when others were untrustworthy, when word was broken, when people delivered hurt and pain rather than love and kindness.

These cohorts are unusually cooperative with each other. They spur each other on. They can be so active that their pessimistic unified internal twist and draining presence can become what the host considers normal, a lens through which sees life.

Despite their hold they can be enduringly unarmed.

“I will not blame others. I will not be a victim of regret. I will do my part in bringing healing to unresolved conflicts. I will allow myself to grieve. It is not too late to live my dreams,” is a simple confession, if exercised daily, is a good place to start on the road to hope and freedom.

When a mammoth tree fell across our home a few years ago, almost splitting the home down the middle, I had no idea what a favor the downed tree would do for me. Seeing the damage I took a walk in the rain to adjust to the challenges I knew I had to face.

The challenge was not only in the trauma of the tree splitting the home. I would have to deal with an insurance company notorious for resisting obligations. When this is over, I decided while walking, I will be proud of my behavior and of how I have treated everybody concerned.

“The Tree,” was a landmark experience. While negotiating with the insurance company and the rebuilding and was not without significant tensions, I held my own and I did behave in a way that now makes me glad.

On that walk I decided I would not be a victim to a storm, a fallen tree, a broken house, a tough insurance company and cut-throat builders.

“Remember the tree” I tell myself when I am tempted to react like a victim. Am I always successful at this? No, unfortunately, I am not. When I am successful it certainly results in a better outcome for all concerned.

I’d love to hear of your similar experiences, landmark moments that made a deep shift within you that is paying off to this day.

An early step – I will not say a “first” step – to facing our fears and having some handle on conquering them is to establish exactly what they are. I believe none of us can face, conquer, or successfully negotiate what we cannot name or refuse to try and name.

Our labels or tags – specific or generic – on our fears might not be accurate, but locating and naming them helps make them seem manageable. 

Until we ourselves are in the driver’s seat of our lives our fears will be quite willing to do the steering and they are erratic and untrustworthy and dominating guides.

They are unlicensed to drive.

Let’s name, list, write about our fears as honestly and brutally as we know how, so once identified, they may take their seats where they belong, which is certainly not at the head of our respective tables.

It is amazing how, once identified, they scurry.

Another helpful step in the fear-facing process is to remind ourselves, you and I, just how far we have come, and that this too, shall pass, and we will all emerge stronger, wiser, kinder people because we faced fears and refused to let them have their way.

We all live within intricate networks of triangles. They can be empowering platforms or viscous traps. Most, thankfully, are somewhere in between such dramatic extremes. Here are a few ways to detox your many triangles and keep them beneficial to you and your family:

• If you have an issue with someone address it directly with that person and avoid speaking about your issue to others. This is “sending your mail to the right address.” 

• Be responsible to others and not responsible for them. Honor all the adults in your life by relinquishing responsibility for them and by being responsible to them.

• Get out of “the middle” and then stay out of the middle of relationships of which you’re not a part. Inserting yourself into things that are none of your business will run you ragged until you’re fully depleted. The estranged relationship your siblings endure with each other with each other is an example of a relationship that is none of your business.

• Avoid entangling yourself with relationships that pre-exist your involvement – if it (the issue) started before you it’s unlikely to end with you.

• Be aware of invisible loyalties that come with being family and blood – they will usually escape reason and, if you involve yourself, will turn on you. When it comes to family and blood ties, people seldom employ logic.

Of course there are social pleasantries like, “how are you?”, and, “how’s your day?”, and, “what’s going on?”. These are expressed in colourful ways around the world according to culture.

The problem is we often stop there. We seldom get beyond social politeness, dig a little deeper, spend a little time connecting with others, even with those whom we love.

I’m guilty of this.

“On the fly” pleasantries keep us, well, on the fly!

When we do take time to hear each other out and not talk over each other‘s thoughts or sentences and are careful not to interrupt each other, we increase our mutual potential to discover the gold within every life.

When we do take the time to hear each other out we might discover unfinished grief that makes “on the fly” understandable, necessary and “helpful.”

When we do take the time to hear each other out we may discover the unmet goals and dreams and the discovery may give rise to some understanding as to why some people appear to behave in such peculiar, often angry ways.

All behavior has meaning.

Until we stop and listen we will understandably attribute meaning to the behavior of others that says more about ourselves than it does those whom we may judge after shooting them“on the fly” pleasantries.

It takes guts to be known and perhaps even more to know.

Monday morning heart-check: 

How are you? How is your heart this morning? I am not referring to the fist-sized organ in the center of your chest as crucial as your physical heart certainly is. I mean the scrum half – the quarterback – of your life. I mean the seat of your emotions; the “black-box” of who you are. I am asking about the center, your head-office, the magnificent place where your thinking, your memory, your planning, converge; the switchboard where you make sense, or try to make sense, of what you have felt, feel right now, and will feel in the future. I mean the place to which one may refer when one says one “fell” in love.

Yes, that place within you: where soul, spirit, mind, memory, ambition, regret, remorse, joy, sadness, grief and passion all gather within you and sit around the conference table and often compete to make you who you are – with some seeking to have the loudest voice and the most say. How’s that place coping within you this morning?

Which or who do you permit to dominate?

“Fine,” or “well” or “ok” will hardly suffice and it is hardly a fair question to ask in passing.

When someone asks me how I am I will sometimes ask if he or she has the time and the interest and the guts to hear my answer.

Peace, goodwill; listening, kindness; generosity, respect, safety, and mercy, all these wonderful community builders, things that make life around us richer and more trustworthy and enjoyable, begin with you and me.

They are inside jobs.

We cannot expect the world to deliver to us that which we are not willing to offer.  

It is irrational to want something in the broader community that you and I are not willing to pursue first within ourselves.

If you want to live in a generous world, be generous.

If you want to live and know mercy and kindness, express both to all whom you know.  

Show what is possible in your every encounter.

If I am harboring anger and resentment toward another how can I wish for a world where people are kind and forgiving? I can hope and hope for a kind, forgiving world, but I am making it impossible while at the same time spreading the opposite of what I hope for.

I see this time and again, and sadly, within myself within the contradictions I know that live within me. 

Then, when I confront myself with the truth of which I am fully aware, and face these contradictions within myself and am on occasion successful in doing so, the result is sheer joy.

A reader asks why I so often write “stay out of control.” Am I endorsing chaos?

I am hearity amused. Chaos is the last thing I want. I have spent a career listening to women (mostly) and men (often) describe how they have confused trust and love with manipulation and submission.

“I trusted him because he said he loved me and he said a man is the ‘spiritual leader’ of the woman.”

Such statements usually precede horrific stories of stalking, jealousy, and determining how she should dress, who she cannot spend time with, and which of her families she may not see.That is the kind of control I want people to “stay out of.”While my illustration is extreme (although not unusual) my suggestion is that all reasonably sane adults manage their own lives all the time. Why not? Why surrender God-given autonomy to anyone ever, I don’t care who they are or how much love is purported to be involved. Love never robs others of their autonomy. Not ever. If you take responsibility for your adult life, make your own decisions about your life you will authentically be in a position to deeply love and unreservedly trust to the fullest extent of your choosing and stay out of control.

If you have a better definition of adulthood and selflessness I would love to hear it.

After-Sermon #15

I’m breaking my pledge, treasured readers; I’m going back on my word.

You may or may not recall, pastors, church members, business leaders, school administrators, the men and women who are faithful After-Sermon readers, something I wrote in my first After-Sermon column.

I said I would never ask you for money.

I am going to, now.

When I made that pledge months ago there were not hundreds of thousands of women and children fleeing Ukraine.

There were not multitudes leaving their dads and husbands at home to fight off a Russian invasion.

When I wrote I would never ask you for money there were not hordes of innocent children clutching onto a few treasured possessions, often a puppy or kitten, onto life itself, flooding neighboring countries of Romania and Poland, to name but two, fleeing for refuge and safety.

I reference Poland and Romania because it is with these two countries that I am most familiar. They are places I have visited. I have, and have had, personal connection with people I deeply trust.

Marta and William Shaw and their two young sons, live in Krakow, Poland. They have opened their home to mothers and children from Ukraine. More than that, they continue to network and reach out daily to many other local families in Krakow and beyond to do the same. This has resulted in a network of safe homes for women and children fleeing Ukraine for Poland. As you can imagine the needs are overwhelming.

Marshall McKenna, who pioneered ManaDeschia (Open Hand) in Campina, Romania, is driving to the Romanian/Ukraine border and rescuing women and children and bringing them to reside in short and long term housing. This is in addition to what his busy mission is already accomplishing. As you can imagine, the needs are surely overwhelming.

I am asking you to give to these efforts.
Your gift, 100% of it, will go directly to the point of need. There will be no processing fee, no administrative costs, no salaries to cover or facility expenses for which to pay.

It will all go to William and Marta Shaw and to Marshall McKenna each of whom I know will apply it to urgent needs.

Marta and William are friends of mine. Marta is a PhD in Education and teaches at the University. William, originally from Minnesota, is a Family Therapist. He has a side interest which involves creating and marketing tasty and magnificent hot sauces.

Marshall McKenna is a South African who has spent most of his adult life in Romania. Decades ago he began providing an avenue to rescue homeless street children from the sewers of Bucharest to a safe haven built by Marshall and his many friends.

These are educated, kind, visionary, determined, and street-wise people.

The elders of First Presbyterian Church New Castle gave an immediate and resounding yes when the idea of a congregational offering was proposed and we will take up an offering during our worship on Sunday, March 13, 2022.

Please, join us in this effort.

Perhaps even suggest your church does the same.

If you’d want to participate with First Pres you may drop your check written to “First Presbyterian New Castle” or mail it to PO BOX 491 New Castle, IN 47362. Please place “Romania” or “Poland” in the memo. If you indicate neither “Poland” nor “Romania” we will split your contribution down the middle and send to both!

Better still, cut this column out of the paper and give it to your pastor and send an offering from your church to a related cause of your church’s choice.

Generosity opens the heart to beauty and possibility, it magnifies hope, leads to further acts of kindness, drives away bitterness, and expands vision.

You can count on me to break my word every time if the result is food, warmth, clothing and safety provided to women and children fleeing war.