Durban’s own Terry Angelos’s “White Trash” deserves acclaim and attention. 

The cover-quip by Jane Linley-Thomas says it is “flipping riveting.” 

That it is, indeed. 

And, more. Far more. 

If any venue on the planet where I teach Family Therapy had the courage to allow it, I would use the book as an essential text. I’d make it required reading for anyone wanting to study Family Therapy – in fact I’d come to Durban to do just that – because the memoir offers a graphic window into several pivotal elements of Systemic Family Process. 

It is all there: triangulation, the power of invisible loyalties, our deep connection to our place of birth, family process  – how the generations before us impact our individual lives for good and ill and how we potentially get to shift the future. It demonstrates the primal drives we each must fight, and how the search for survival and love can make or break us. 

Then, it is about grace, intervention, wholeness, wholesomeness, love and reconciliation.     

If you have not yet read it, please, do yourself and all of humanity a favor and do so.

It will challenge our every possible stereotype about the darker side of troubled women and men and remind you of the human ability to hurt, harm, judge and condemn.

Above all, you will be reminded that grace, redemption, and the possibility of reconciliation really is available to us all.

One man’s “trash” really is another man’s treasure.

Thanks be to God.

While there are more than 3, here are individual and organizational mindsets I have run into lately. There are people and organizations (schools, churches, businesses) who have: 

A visionary mindset – possibilities of life and creativity are endless. They can hardly wait to get started or continue building and participating in doing wonderful and challenging and adventurous things. They say “yes” more than “no.” They seek to solve encountered problems rather than search for them, or create them, before they start.

A victim mindset – possibilities are very limited because people perceive they are downtrodden by the choices of others and large opponents like “the education system” and “the government.” Every hurdle faced proves success is impossible. This is a platform of “let’s just say no” to almost everything before knowing what is being asked. 

A safety mindset – the world is such a dangerous place that every effort to ensure safety and reduce risk must be taken. These groups and individuals focus so much on prevention of failure and risk that it warps and robs participants of the innate human desire for adventure. These groups and individuals seldom seem to consider how dangerous a perfectly safe world would really be.

What do you want in your heart of hearts? 

Not for others, for yourself. 

This is not a selfish way to think unless, of course, you stop there. 

For this exercise, think only of yourself. 

It is a good and essential place to start. 

Examining this question and writing your answers using a few pages of bullet points is about getting your own house in order before you act on the inevitable impulse to arrange and rearrange other people’s lives. It is well understood that those who mess with the lives of others are usually avoiding their own inner-turmoil. 

It is hard to be in touch with this deep place of “what do you want in your heart of hearts” if we are always on the go. It takes closing your door, switching off the screens, perhaps dimming lights. It is making the effort to consider where you are right now in your life journey and how far you may be removed from what you want in your heart of heart. 

Where does your mind rush to if you insist on stillness and quietness? 

What does the quietness want to say? 

Outer quietness can offset inner storms of loud inner-voices competing for attention. 

Given time you will be able to cut through all the mind clutter and get in touch with what you really want in your heart of hearts.

Artist: Willem Onker

The Courier-Times / today

If you ever want a beautiful picture of mercy the Biblical account of the life of Joseph is the place to go.

His response to his desperate, begging brothers embodies the quality of mercy I have often received.

While in Genesis, you will encounter with Joseph moments of extraordinary grace and healing, while you are surely bombarded with the impulse to burst out in songs from the Rice-Loyd-Webber musical bearing his name.

Following a rather violent and involuntary departure and after decades of separation from his family, Joseph abounds in kindness and mercy and humility exercised towards his undeserving brothers.

This same band of brothers found young Joseph so threatening they discarded him into a well as a kinder option to killing him, and then sold him to a traveling caravan.

As a result of their jealousy and violence, Joseph spent years in isolation and torment.

When, decades later and faced with his brothers, Joseph would be justified if he chose to have nothing to do with them or exercised his extraordinary endowed powers in the pharaoh’s domain to have them arrested and held accountable for their crimes.

But no, recognizing who they are, knowing his brothers have come in search of help, he discloses his identity.

“I am Joseph. Is my father still alive?”

His first question is about their father’s wellbeing.

I cannot imagine being cut-off from my extended family, all of whom live in distant countries. I cannot imagine not knowing if one of my closest relatives is living or dead.

When legitimately, there could be anger, Joseph expresses none.

He fosters no desire for pay-back.

Joseph’s retribution quotient rests firmly at zero.

“Come closer,” he says and weeps with relief and gratitude for the opportunity for reconciliation.

“I will provide for you,” he tells them and there are hugs and kisses and weeping all round.

What a reunion!

Many families long for such a reunion.

Do you?

“Something got in the way,” I hear a woman say revealing she has not spoken to her sister in decades.

“I will never talk to that woman again. She got mom’s dining room table she knew that I wanted.”

A table got in the way.

A dining room table was enough to sever a family tie?

“Ah, it is not about the table,” may be a legitimate retort.

I concede it may well not be about a table.

Give me a few moments and I could suggest a variety of possible explanations for the schism a table may conveniently represent.

Family estrangements can be horribly painful but, even sadder, we grow accustomed to them. We live with them. It becomes how life is.

“Something got in the way,” would have been a gross understatement had Joseph chosen victimhood.

May we each do our parts in getting whatever got in the way, out of the way.

Joseph embodied mercy when he had the choice to extract vengeance.

Joseph chose humility, when he indeed could have demanded his brothers bow before him and beg for their lives.

By grace-upon-grace, may we each do the same.

Rev. Rod Smith is pastor at First Presbyterian Church in New Castle.

If you ever want a beautiful picture of a family reunion and mercy, the Biblical story of Joseph is the place to go. While you are there, if you can stop yourself from singing the music from “Joseph,” the widely loved musical, you will also see several family therapy axioms.

After decades of separation following a rather violent and involuntary departure and then years of isolation and struggle and torment, Joseph is full of grace and mercy toward his brothers. Recognizing who they are and realizing his brothers have come in search of help, Joseph discloses who he is and immediately asks about their father.

“I am Joseph. Is my father still alive?”

When there legitimately could be, there is no anger or desire for pay-back within Joseph.

“Come closer,” he says to his brothers and weeps with relief and gratitude for the opportunity for reconciliation.

“I will provide for you,” he tells his undeserving brothers.

What a family reunion! Many families long for such a reunion. Do you?

“Something got in the way,” I hear a woman say when she tells me she had not spoken to her sister in decades.

I concede, there are situations and times it’s impossible but, where possible, may we do our parts in getting whatever got in the way, out of the way.

I regret to inform a valued reader from last week that there is no “failure to communicate” in the dating relationship that is causing you heartache.

The man you are “seeing” – or trying to see – is not lacking in communication skills and he cannot be accused of not communicating with you. People are communicating round the clock. We cannot stop communicating. Try it. You cannot. Go ahead and hide from the world, turn off your cell phone, stop talking to the people around you. The message you send with such odd behavior will be loud and clear to others even if it is totally misunderstood and misinterpreted.

The core failure labeled “no communication” rests in the unwillingness to hear, read, or believe what it is that is being communicated. The man who is constantly late for appointments with you, who repeatedly “forgets” matters that are very important to you, who avoids your texts and daily plays hide-and-seek with you is a superb communicator. He is trumpeting, full-volume, loud and clear that he does not care about the “relationship” he has with you despite what he may say to you when you are together. There is no failure to communicate. The issue is a failure or unwillingness to read or believe what is being very clearly declared.

Remarkably simple, thoroughly life changing concepts when understood, embraced, and implemented:

• Blame has no good return for the person choosing it. No matter how poor a job our parents may have done, continuing to blame them, or anyone, and hold resentment against them, or anyone, will be unhelpful and will impact the future for generations to come. Each of us has to make our own lives work and be successful – or not – no matter what hand we have been dealt.
• Resentment is emotional cancer. It eats the host alive and usually has little or no impact on the resented person. He or she is scott-free while the host continues to stew in resentment’s toxic acids. Unforgiveness darkens the outlook and twists perceptions on everything, not only on the target of unforgiveness.
• Health is first an inside job. People do need help often from others but the initial impulse for wellness must come from within. No one ever successfully imposed enduring health on another.
• The parent who is overly-focussed on the child is probably doing neither the child nor himself or herself any favors. Even though they may appear to enjoy it, children are not equipped to handle being worshiped. Benign neglect or divided attention are better options than up-close-super-focussed parenting.

“It’s not what you know but who you know,” runs the cliche. Like you, I have evidence that this often holds to be true. I am grateful that pre-existing relationships have opened many doors for me. I like to think that I have similarly fostered opportunities for others.

What you know is also important. Who you know won’t usually cut it if you are uneducated about some matters or unskilled in some areas. You can be steeply connected to “very important” people – they may even be family – but these relationships will not help when certain skills and qualifications are required for certain roles or privileges.

There is a somewhat related thought that I believe trumps who and what you know. How you relate to others is crucial to your success.

You are the one common factor in all of your relationships. Who you know and what you know can be derailed by how you behave. Kindness, humility, openness to others, willingness to learn, demonstration of mutual respect are sure-fire door openers. Brashness, arrogance, and an attitude of entitlement can have a door shut in your face no matter who you are or what you know.

There is a difference between keeping peace (peacekeeping) and making peace (peacemaking). Peacekeeping takes a lot of work and saps energy. It’s never-ending. Peacemaking lays groundwork for authentic peace to rule. Peacekeepers work hard to keep the tensions from rising. They often pretend nothing is wrong. Peacemakers allow tensions to be aired and might even precipitate necessary conflict. Peacekeepers avoid conflict at all costs. Their reward is the semblance of tranquility, and the slow demise of their integrity.

Peacemakers invite necessary conflict. They know there is no other pathway to greater understanding between warring people. Peacekeepers may endure fake peace for decades – and feel “called” or anointed or special.

Peacekeepers often have high levels of martyrdom. How else would they rationalize the stress of trying to hide the proverbial elephant in the room? Peacekeepers are often portrayed as deeply spiritual because they can endure so much without “saying anything.” They often see their suffering as persecution, rather than the product of being misguided.

Peacemakers value authentic peace. The peace that exists between people with the courage to endure conflict, for the sake of lasting peace, is as gold when compared with its counterfeit cousin.

Assume your legitimate role as a peacemaker, and give up the other as nonsense.

Former Durban resident and Glenwood High School Old Boy and East Coast Radio coach Stephen Light is in KZN this week, visiting from the UK. We go back a few years. He was about 13, delivering a prepared speech in my classroom and alluded to eating polony in Smith’s t-room he visited in Red Hill as a very young boy. Light, always a very bright light, quickly made the connection once it was clear his English teacher knew the same shop and was also a Mr. Smith.

Stephen Light is an executive coach with a remarkable list of international clients.

“I challenge people. I go beyond the obvious, showing them what they don’t see, helping them change themselves,” writes Stephen. Light is also an accomplished actor. He brought Charles Dickens’ Artful Dodger to delightful life in Oliver on the Glenwood stage co-starring with Durban’s Steven Stead who played the perfect Oliver.

“Consider yourself at home,” Stephen, “part of the furniture,” while visiting Durban. Perhaps you could pop in to your former high school, show those boys the sky really is the limit. After all, you’ve proved it. Your life demonstrates there are no limits to what a person may achieve if he or she merges courage, integrity, humor, commitment and daring vision.