Understanding others is about accepting we cannot change them

There is a sharp dissonance between an attitude of wanting to understand others and actually achieving this ideal.  This is because, though we all seek to be understood, rarely do we seek to understand others to the extent we accept that we cannot change them.

The prime example here is the goal of much evangelism.  We think that if a person is going to be saved that they’ll be changed, or that our influence might somehow help them to improve as human beings.  This isn’t what God ever had in mind—being saved is simply acknowledging that we need God.  It has nothing whatsoever to do with self-improvement.

Discipleship, or following Jesus, is also nothing to do with self-improvement.

Discipleship is one-hundred percent Jesus focused; it’s walking humbly with our God.

But let me get back to the concept of truly understanding others, which is a concept of loving others that makes us trustworthy persons of peace—because we’re not trying to change them.  Not having a problem with a person is one of the best ways to build trust.

This might be hardest of all in our families.  Maybe there’s a child or a relationship or a brother or sister, a best friend, or a parent that we want to help.  We may justify that they need us; that our help is imperative.  If we can’t accept who they are, we’re the ones with the problem.

The more we try and help someone else be who they presently aren’t, the more futility we toy with.  It’s okay if they’re willing participants and they diligently want the coaching.  Otherwise, it’s a waste of time and effort.

What we do when we try to change someone, or we’re always nit-picking about something, is we’re telling them that we aren’t trustworthy.  That’s all we’re saying.

Because we don’t accept them as they are, we cannot understand them, and they’ll always feel misunderstood and disconnected from us.  But when we understand a person because we truly accept them for who they are—despite the decisions they make—the relationship flourishes and has incredible potential.

When we take our fellow human beings on as equals in EVERY way—despite our differences in age, gender, class, race, etc—we begin to live as disciples of Jesus.  Yes, it’s as simple as that.  Forget about your liberal and conservative stances.

Living as if everyone is an equal, that we’re no better or worse than the next person, is one way to live at peace, without needing to people-please on the one hand, and without lording it over others on the other.  It’s not easy achieving such a respect for all others, and we can only achieve this when we truly accept others as they are, where they are, how they are.

Accepting that we cannot change a person says a lot to that person.  It means they’re safe to just be with us, they don’t feel judged, criticised, and condemned.  Paradoxically, they may actually begin to care what we think because of the safety of trust that forms between us.

Loving others begins with our acceptance of them, and in the final analysis valuing others is how they feel loved.  Remember how Jesus said, “A new command I give you: love one another.”  Accepting others for who they are is understanding them, and doing this is the honouring of Jesus’ new command.

Freedom to learn the hard way

Not all the lessons in life are learned the hard way, but many of them are.  And that’s okay.  It’s got to be.  It’s got to be okay because we will all learn the hard way from time to time.

Well, it’s hoped that we’ll learn!

One thing I’ll never forget hearing from former Australian cricket captain, Ian Chappell, was, “You learn much more from a loss than you do from a win.”  It’s something we all forget, and we hate—of course.  The pain of loss is a stinging insult to our pride and craving for comfort.  None of us is saved from this.  We’ll never get used to losing out or missing out.

The key truth I want to expound here is something I could have only learned from my wife, but actually my parents had showed me this in my formative years too.

It’s a truth we experience from how others treat us.  Just like others can traumatise us with their tyranny, others can bless us with their wisdom.  Thankfully, we can all think of people who have sown the message of hope into us.

The thing my wife does is she will advise something and just leave it.  When I don’t adopt the wisdom she offers, she doesn’t tell me “I told you so” when things go pear-shaped.  It’s like she knows and accepts that the arduous less of learning the hard way is enough.  I mean, she might mention it, but she doesn’t rub it in.

Case in point.  Three weeks ago, we were on a camping holiday weekend when a colleague sent out an SOS for someone to cover her on-call period.  I’m always keen to offer to help.  When I said yes, I didn’t really think I’d be deployed on my son’s ninth birthday, but you guessed it, my wife thought that there was a good chance of it occurring (I’m much more a risk taker than she is).

She probably even said something to that effect (you see, I can’t even recall it, which is part of the problem).

When I got the call that someone needed to go, though I was of course prepared and willing, I offered the deployment to others in my team—to give them first refusal—but when we looked at it as a team it was obvious that others couldn’t or shouldn’t be released but that I could and therefore should go.

Not a problem.  You’re not on call to not be called upon to deploy.

But as I arrived at my son’s ninth birthday, it was so HARD not being there for it and for him.  I know he REALLY misses me.  I REALLY miss him.  BUT the point is, it’s a hard lesson.

This is the wisdom: leave space for a person to learn the hard way, that is, it’s good that we don’t resent it or them for not listening to us.

There needs to be space made for all of us to learn our lessons the hard way without being chided about it.  It’s hard enough learning the hard way.  The hard way should be sufficient pain in and of itself for us to learn.  

I know, however, that many people don’t learn the hard way, they keep repeating it, or as the old Proverbs 26:11 says: “As a dog returns to its vomit, so a fool repeats his folly.”

We can’t talk people into important life lessons that they themselves can’t convince themselves of.

But it’s good to give space for a person to learn the lesson for what the lesson’s worth.

Unfortunately, in my case my son must learn the hard way at his expense, yet he’s also learning how to endure loss, which is not altogether a bad thing.  But it still warrants an apology and the compensation of time made up.

But still, there’s always space to learn the hard way.  There has to be.  We’re all destined to immersed in such lessons.

A message to the hurt from someone who’s been there

This is possibly one of the most important articles I’ve ever written.  From a heart that knows what it’s like to be hurt, I write this to anyone, justified in their hurt, frustrated that they can’t move on, frustrated that they can’t get justice, stuck in a world of hurt... for any reason... for anyone who would relate.

Particularly for those who have been relationally hurt—betrayed.

The first thing I need to say is I know how you feel.  And I know how long it can take to resolve those feelings.  It can take years.  It took me years.  Five years at least.

But the thing I learned that I couldn’t have learned any other way is there’s a purpose being stuck in our hurt.  There really is.  I know from a theological aspect, I’d ‘gotten’ forgiveness back nearly twenty years ago.  It’s like the season of life I really thought, “Gee, I’ve really had all my anger healed; I’ll never have a problem with anger ever again.”

I think God will allow us to believe such lies for a while so we can rue them later.

From a counselling perspective, I’m so glad I’ve had to learn the hard way around anger, hurt, and forgiveness.  I’m glad because my journey of not being able to overcome it had me in the prime position of God showing me a new thing—a thing I couldn’t in my strength or power ever have procured.

I want to say to the person who is still angry, hurt, frustrated, confused, triggered... you are not alone.  What you’re dealing with is common to just about everyone.  We’re best to try not to judge ourselves, just as we should understand it when we occasionally flip into judging others who’ve hurt us—not that doing this helps, mind you.

But it does help to know that being hurt causes us to flip-flop from being angry toward the perpetrator to being self-condemning and back and forth unto exhaustion at times.

There are so many things we actually learn in the boggy mire of hurt.  Provided we try to understand it.  None of what we endure in the messiness of the anger and the guilt and even the shame is ever wasted.  It can all be redeemed.

When we’re right there in the hurt, it’s good to imagine that one day we could feel vastly different to how we do now.  That’s the nature of transformation, and we all undergo transformative experiences.

When the time comes for the light of perspective to break through, it seems we’re more than ready to “move on,” having arrived at a place where a new normal is more palatable than the darkness we’ve been through, a great hope dawns.

It’s worth forgiving.  It’s worth reminding ourselves that if one deserves mercy, all deserve mercy, for the acts of everyone are seen by the same Almighty God.  It’s better by far to have been the betrayed than the betrayer.  And how much better when we step out of God’s way and refuse any longer to discharge the divine duty?

That is not to say that we’re ‘there’ yet.  I definitely understand.  Any of this could be a trigger.

When we finally arrive at a point we never thought we’d ever arrive at, we can see the miracle in it, and from this perspective we see the wisdom in the humility of it.

We all yearn for freedom from every bondage, or at least we should.  Why do we keep on going back to our messy places?  Because we feel self-justified, and it feels right, and we can always justify such behaviour with a plethora of evidence.

But it doesn’t help us live freely and it affects us in many ways, including those who are close to us, and we’re good to nobody and good for nobody when we’re set in a cynical way of being.

I expect this will be tough reading for some.  Don’t forget I’ve been there, and for long enough that I never thought I’d get through it to be honest.  There were times I’d lost hope that I’d recover.  These were the times I was triggered for hours of frustrated ranting because of all the felt injustice of it all.

It never did me or anyone else close to me any good.  It only produced harm.

There’s wisdom in recovery, in finding our way out of a place we can only see injustice from.

When all we can see is injustice, we become cynical and skewed, and it leads to a nowhere land that is its own source of futility.

It’s understandable when we’ve endured travesties to want justice.  But part of justice is that we, ourselves, as survivors would have access to the justice of freedom.  Often it’s a case of accepting what we cannot change.

Tough as this might be to read and absorb for some, I hope it’s life and hope ultimately.

Hard-endured lessons produce hard-won wisdom.

Love and drawing a line in the sand with your heart

Is it possible to love everyone to the best of your ability and still guard your heart?

In loving people—and perhaps we have a particular person in mind at this point—we can feel challenged and even thwarted in being vulnerable as we would prefer to be.

In giving ourselves to others, it can feel as if we’re giving too much, for a person can take that, and more.  We can feel as if we’re taken advantage of—exploited no less.

There are individuals who engage in exploitative behaviour.  While we’re there, we can check on a few other things: do they lack empathy—across the board I mean; and are they entitled?  Those three “e’s” are crucial in identifying unsafe people.  Finally, do these three “e’s” feature only situationally?  Or are they exploitative of our love, lacking in empathy, and entitled more often than not?  A further qualifier: on the occasions where the three “e’s” feature, are these times damaging to you—in any regard—or are you easily able to recover?  (At this point, please realise that damage done is not a reflection on you; it’s a reflection on them.)

If any of this raises something in us, we can call it a red flag.  It doesn’t mean we can’t love this person, but it does mean our love will need to be fortified.

Loving a challenging person is complex, but still possible, but we’ll need to accept beforehand that it will cost us significant energy and more than the occasional frustration.  Accepting this beforehand, I mean, coming to terms with this, helps a great deal.  Amid the challenges of disappointment, we can continue to be buoyed despite the fact that loving behaviour is hard—as much because it’s not always reciprocated.

I mean, we don’t do our love so it will be returned to us, but those of us who give our safety and vulnerability freely at least want to be safe in our relationships.

And this is a fair expectation.

Those we extend our vulnerability to who trample us will need a fortified form of our giving love.  They will need a special touch of our love that comes with our strength—for we all have it.  This strength I speak of is the awareness of who we’re dealing with—one bitten, twice shy.

~

Now, in saying all this, a good thing we can do to begin with is have an honest self-assessment using the prayer of Psalm 139:23-24—acknowledging that God knows everything about us.  We all need a measure of grace apportioned to us.

~

Love invites us on a journey of individualised care for each person.  Some difficult people need much grace, whereas some people need more a measure of truth.  Yes, that’s right, we can and indeed do need to love people with and in truth.

The apostle Paul says, “Speak the truth in love,” which means at least to speak kindly, being patient, and committing to being generous in these ways, bringing truth into accord with the larger fold of grace.  Knowing this gives us a bearing in our boundaries for the self-control we need to communicate in ways that protect our heart.

If ever we were to communicate in ways where self-control is lacking, we can know beyond a shadow of a doubt that such an expression is bound to boomerang back at us.  Amazing how our responses can work against us when we didn’t start it.

Knowing this, we ensure the boundary of self-control is in place, not simply for the other person’s benefit, but at the very least for our own benefit.  This is a safe boundary for us as well as them.

Whatever we can be responsible for we’re in control of and that’s an empowered position—for us.  This is what we should encourage in everyone.

Shrewd communication is also about knowing when and how to initiate and when and how to respond.  A safer way of communicating with vexatious individuals is to initiate less and to be very prayerful around response—using in some ways the ‘GREY ROCK’ method.  I’ve found this article helpful.

In saying “love invites us on a journey of individualised care for each person,” we need to acknowledge that some people will require a strategy and tactics that underpin and support that strategy.  The blessings that such people provide to us is they sharpen us.  They’re instruments that God uses to train us in a divine wisdom that the world does not know.

Did you see what I did with the previous two sentences: I showed you the upside of a less-than-desirable situation.  There is something we can take away in our loving every other person.  Some are easy to love, and they love well themselves.

Don’t be too concerned if it’s taking you a while to learn to love a person who is difficult to love. Provided they’re not a sociopath, we can let our experience guide us.

When love is given or received it’s respectful.  Disrespect forces boundaries upon love.

** Acknowledgement and thanks to Monica who inspired the article and provided help with the title.

Grief doesn’t run to a time schedule and that’s okay

It’s taken me some time to admit this in a more public way than with just a few friends, but after the loss of Nathanael, for about five years, I didn’t want to be around babies, I didn’t want to talk about babies, I didn’t want to hold babies.  You get the idea.

It’s probably only when I became a grandfather in 2019 that that mood began to thaw.

Part of the issue was again we were trying to fall pregnant, and nothing was happening, and nothing did happen.  We never had the “rainbow baby.”  And ultimately, having lost his little brother, we gave up on the dream of having another little brother or little sister for our son.  That was another level of grief.  And there are so many nuances and threads of grief connected with all these events, some we’re at liberty to discuss, some we can’t, and some we can’t even describe.

I write this now to connect with those many parents or would-be-parents who are struggling in their quest for a child.  At the opposite end, there are many who struggle because they have their child, whether it’s around special needs and disability, or there’s post-partum depression in either or both Mum and Dad.  These adjustments involve loss and grief.

It didn’t worry me that something in my heart had grown cold and distant in terms of others’ babies.  Part of the challenge was healing.  I knew it and I accepted it.  But part of the journey was also accepting that while God gives, God also takes away (Job 1:21).  It feels bizarre, even maddening, when some prayers just aren’t answered the way we’d want them to be.  But each and every one of us will find ourselves in that place in our lifetimes.

I’ve watched myself gradually warm to others in their baby bliss.  More these days is the case that I’m connected to my four babies that did survive.  These four don’t so much make up for the devastating loss of Nathanael but more so it’s a matter of my focus.

Then I’m reminded of the many people we know who don’t have partners.  Or who are still trying to fall pregnant, or who so strongly yearn for a second child like we did, or those who must say goodbye to the dream of a healthy baby for some other reason that’s beyond their control.  Or for the person who can’t yet safely have a child.

Grief turns us off certain things and when we identify what those things are it’s okay.  It can be a real task to get beyond the guilt and shame of not feeling the way we think we should.

It’s okay that we don’t yet have an answer as to why we struggle to love in some situations.

It’s okay that our heart’s not in it to “rejoice with those who rejoice.”

Facing our grief is as important as being as cheerful as we can with those who have reason to celebrate.  That others may not have a clue regarding how hard it is for us is a grace we can extend to them.  Nobody reads minds.  But suffering enlivens empathy.

It takes a tremendous amount of courage to enter situations of triggering voluntarily when to not to would hurt others.  There are friends and family who have been ecstatic, and we can’t avoid them. We can’t shut our eyes to the babies in the shopping malls and doctor’s surgeries.  Then there’s all the advertising where perfect families are paraded as the halcyon of life.

The slow burn of pregnancy, fertility treatment, and child loss wears people down over the years, and it’s a journey of faith to keep coming back month after month after month.

Life’s not always as we would want it.  Many times in life we don’t get what we so passionately desire.  If that’s as it is, and it is, then it must be okay that we continue to grieve such facts.  It’s our life, it’s our truth.

It’s not good enough to gaslight a person into submission if they haven’t healed on another person’s timeframe.  It’s God’s prerogative and agenda, and it’s not for anyone to judge the timing and expression of a person’s grief.

Please don’t put pressure on people to “heal” just because they’re grieving their losses.

Don’t put pressure on anyone to act a certain way.  Loss is its own phenomenon, and grief has its own trajectory.

NOVEMBER 2022 EDIT:

Having written this originally in March 2022, we suffered the loss of Mum in August 2022.  Mum agreed wholeheartedly with the premise of the article, and yet now, as a family, we regale in disbelief at times that it’s less than 3 months since she passed, yet we’ll never get used to her gone.  I recall Mum telling me that she continued to miss her mother (d. 1990), her stillborn daughter (d. 1973), and many other losses.  It’s probably best said that loss and grief change us.  I think it’s fair to say that though grief doesn’t work on a time schedule, it does enlarge us so we can accommodate the effects of grief in our lives all the while getting on with our lives.  And just as well.

Let’s talk consent

It still shocks me—though it shouldn’t—that there is harassment and abuse reported in the higher echelons of the Christian world.  This recent revelation by Christianity Today about Christianity Today is a prime and sickening example. (Link: https://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2022/march/sexual-harassment-ct-guidepost-assessment-galli-olawoye.html)

Would anyone who is abused give their consent for the abuse to occur?

Of course, they wouldn’t.  But before we start looking at the victim with a scowl, believing in some cases that they consented, we ought to look at a standard for consent that says, “Yes, I wanted what was offered to me believing it was always going to be good for me.”

And, “good for me is good also for those who are already in relationship with me.”

In other words, “good for me” means there will be NIL disadvantage to me—which extends to those in relationship with me, i.e., zero harm to everyone.

Let’s not be naïve about consent thinking people give their consent willingly knowing all of what they’re consenting to.  If a person knows only 60 percent of what they’re consenting to, it’s not consent, it’s manipulation.  It’s not a free relationship.  Most of the time when there are consent issues, people are either abused without their consent, consent is assumed yet not granted, or consent is given without the person knowing all of what they’re ‘consenting’ to.

If such a consent ends up NOT being good for the person—in that, unforeseeable consequences occurred to them or for them—then we can fully understand that they weren’t ever able to give their consent.  They may have been duped.  They may have been in a much less powerful position than the person making the offer.  The rules were changed on them, or they never genuinely understood the real rules.  Something wasn’t right.

Even when someone doesn’t complain, 
it doesn’t mean they asked for what they got.

Were they asked?  And if they were, were they reasonably able or allowed to say no?  By that I mean, would they have been welcomed in saying no?  Did the other party afford them such freedom?  Usually not, and where it’s a no, there is no consent. 

Were they coerced?  Were they wooed?  Were they manipulated with smooth sounding words or sweet charisma?  Were they ‘stung’ with delights they hardly felt worthy of receiving?  Were they sold only the positives/benefits?  If so, it wasn’t consent.

We’re all vulnerable for saying yes to a deal too good to be true.  Many times, we’ve even said yes against our better judgment, and so therefore was it full consent?  And certainly, consent can be withdrawn.

Consent is a yes to an offer that a person is free to take or leave, and it presupposes that the offer would be good for the person in question, and their whole life.

Ethically speaking, if the offer would potentially or actually damage a person in any way—yes, to the extent of their relationships also—even in the case that they said yes, there is still an issue with consent.

WHAT ARE THE REQUIREMENTS OF RELATIONSHIP?

All relationships, no matter the standard of intimacy, rely on the standard of love.  No matter whether these are Christian relationships or not.

Let me explain.

Everyone has an expectation that they’re related with in ways that don’t disadvantage or damage them.  In other words, everyone expects that they’ll be treated with respect.  Nobody expects to be blindsided by betrayal.

Betrayal is a deal breaker in terms of consent.

Everyone enters into relationships with other people, and entities with entities, in good faith that the relationship will benefit and not hinder them.

Nobody enters willingly into relationships in the knowledge that things will turn sour or worse that they’ll be traumatised by the experience.

Relationship, by its very nature, if it is to be a relationship of any true function, assumes consent.  But when relationships turn against people in forms of abuse, the assumption of consent is immediately withdrawn, simply because the person abused would never have consented to being treated that way.

The rules of consent change when the nature of the relationship changes—when the person who agreed to a certain form of relationship finds they’re in a completely different arrangement.  It’s like defaulting on a contract.  One person changes the nature of the relationship through their abysmal behaviour, and the other has a right to call foul.

In abuse, the abuser changes the rules of the relationship game and expects the one they’re abusing to just sit there and take it.  By changing the rules of the game, which in many ways can simply be the revealing of the real rules, the abuser assumes control over the relationship.  Real relationships are either equal in their power base or the power dynamics are equalised somehow.  But the abuser has revealed the power dynamics are lopsided, unjust, and unfair, and those dynamics can never be equalised.

The standard of relationship that works and that is sustainable is safe for all parties because it meets the standard of love to the standard of respect.

Think of it this way.  Relationships are supposed to be rewarding, and there always needs to be capacity in relationships for both parties to be wrong, for either party to own their contribution.  Relationships fail when one or both won’t/don’t own their wrongs.

But that’s a whole new article...

Little wonder we’re anxious in these troubled times

I’ve been thinking recently about the present time and what it is exactly that affects us all so much.  We all respond differently, but there’s a tremendous anxiety being felt right now.  

I know it helps to identify the stressors, to assess what we can change opposed to what needs to be accepted.  Here is an attempt at locating the stressors that are bombarding us:

Even though all our lives have been lived in the shadow of the concept of World War III, it still bewilders us as we approach what looks like it will slide that way.  We’re forgiven for feeling like “this can’t be happening.”

We’re in grief, even if many of us are reeling from the fallout of the pandemic.  The last thing we imagined when life was promising to start to get back to normal was something even worse than a pandemic.  That is the very definition of anxiety—feeling utterly helpless when we watch our TV screens, witnessing a genocide of trauma in real time.

One of the direct impacts of war is the increase in the cost of living, food, and fuel.  Prices are hiking up as we speak, and our financial welfare is directly linked to our mental health.

The issue of climate change is finally becoming accepted globally.  As we reconcile what the science tells us, that irreversible change has taken place, and now that the planet is so sick, we’re in damage control to limit the catastrophe from unfolding in our lifetimes, and in the lifetimes of our children and grandchildren.

There’s also an ambient sense of division in society generally.  I don’t know if you’ve detected it, but I’ve often wondered how miserable the world has been getting.  When people are miserable, they usually look at others to blame.

When entire societies are ripping each other apart, we must wonder what’s causing it.

Moreover, we’ve all got a huge number of things in our individual and family lives that create anxiety in us.  These in a very truthful sense are even bigger issues to us than war, the cost of living, climate change, and an angry society.

Little wonder we’re feeling so anxious in these troubled times.

Little wonder we feel out of control.

For so long now we’ve all been living in a state of prolonged and exhausting uncertainty.

As I mentioned in the beginning, the first step to overcoming our mental health challenges is to first understand what they are, where they’re coming from, and then look at them objectively.

Once we’ve had that chat with ourselves about the sources of our stress then we can ask ourselves what can be done.  Do we change how we think?  Do we accept what we can’t change?  Do we endeavour to change what we can?  And most important who can we share our burdens with and how can we give others support too?

Demands in a relationship called Love

It’s a basic teaching in peacemaking that we all have desires, and even good desires can blur into demands.  Demands kill love.  Demands turn the desire, good or not-so-good, into an attitude of judgment, which quickly translates into behaviours of punishment.

Punishment and love don’t belong in the same sentence.  Accountability and love do, but not punishment.

Oh the subtleties between punishment and accountability.

Punishment cares for only itself and what IT wants.  Accountability is about the success of a partnership.  Punishment says, “You must do it MY way.”  Accountability says, “We live here, and we coexist by the same rules.”

Can a person demand to be loved?  No, love can only be offered freely.  But if a person chooses to demand something instead of loving, they take away the freedom of the other in the relationship.

Demands kill love, yet the opportunity of repentance restores what would’ve been annulled.

The genuine love that’s exemplified in the beauty of relationship is that freedom that lives along a continuum of acceptance where judgment and condemnation don’t get a run.

Yet so many relationships are defined by a pattern of demand.  I’m not talking about the idea of occasional demand where in our human frailty we falter in our occasional neediness.

This concept of demand as a lifestyle is in the frame.

When a thing must be done, a certain way, within a certain timeframe or, worse, when you’re required to be a certain person or hold to certain attitudes or approaches.  When you’re not doing anything right, or when you seem to get everything wrong.  When you’ve not got enough or are never enough.

The list goes on.  Demand is a hell of a task master.  It’s never satisfied.  And demand makes a misery of a relationship because demand is a miserable companion.

Demand must be expunged from relationship.  It’s a cancer that needs to be dug out at its core.  What life is breathed into a relationship when a person who’s resorted to demand decides of their own accord that they’ve missed the mark—oh, yes, it happens!

Sometimes it’s about a gentle though firm challenge, “Do you realise that you’re demanding in what (and the way) you’re requiring from me?”

Any relationship that can speak such truth and where it can be heard and pondered is a relationship seriously worth working for.  But for the person who cannot bear to be confronted with the possibility that they’re not perfect it’s affrontery.

Demands will sink every relationship, sooner or later.   If we cherish our relationships, we’ll genuinely venture into the opportunity to do an audit: “Am I demanding or is my partner demanding?  Every time I’m demanding I damage the cause of love and am not building the relationship, but slowly eroding it.”

Mortality tune-in and check-up

The passing of cricketing legend Shane Warne at 52 of a heart attack is a wake-up call to all men in their 40s and 50s because we can suddenly just drop dead because of underlying heart conditions.

I did an echocardiogram stress test a few years back, so apart from keeping as fit as I can and watching my diet, problems with the heart may be more later in life, but I’m still not taking chances.

On a recent time away, I had a moment where I thought about my insides, the organs in my body, and how much I take them for granted.

Don’t misunderstand, I don’t drink or smoke or do anything else that could put my organs in mortal danger, but there are a lot of factors beyond lifestyle factors to be aware of.  Like a huge range of cancers, kidney and liver and lung diseases, Alzheimer’s, diabetes type 2, etc.

Think about the bowel or the liver or the eye, for instance.  These organs we rely on from the moments before we’re even born.  Made miraculously out of cells and tissues perfect for their function, they faithfully deliver on their function day-in, day-out, for our entire lives.

The linings of the tissues and the interwovenness of the muscles all throughout our bodies gives us the ability to do all the things we do without even a moment’s thought.

Any number of things could go wrong with our bodies, yet we just go on living as if they’ll always serve us.

Earlier in my life I drank and smoked a lot, and I guess I must trust that there are no long-term effects from either of those.  It’s amazing how much alcohol (hundreds of times inebriated) and how many cigarettes (thousands of them) a person can consume and possibly still ‘get away with it’.  I wouldn’t advise people to abuse their bodies like I once did, but just think of how resilient most of our bodies are—until they’re not.

And then there are the hazardous substances that at times we’ve been exposed to in our workplaces, not that this should ever happen.  I can remember welding a heap of galvanised steel grids and feeling very crook the next day, and do you know the prevention back then?  Line your stomach with milk—I kid you not!  I’ve been exposed to asbestos and worked a lot around chemicals and poisons in my early working life.  Ironic I’m in health and safety these days.

We ought to revere more often the design, construction, and resilience of our bodies.

When we view a man of 52 years who is now two days deceased, we would never have contemplated such a reality.  We would’ve expected him to be calling the next cricket game with insightful commentary, but now his family laments he’s gone forever.

We don’t settle our affairs well enough in life.  We don’t live as if it might be our turn next.  We don’t keep short account with ourselves, our relationships, our apologies, or amends.  We tend to think life will keep running forever.

Back in 2008 Nickelback brought out such a wise tune: If Today Were Your Last Day.  What if tomorrow were too late?  Would you forgive your enemies?

What conversation would you cruel yourself for not having?  What plans are you putting off that could make a difference in your tomorrows now?  Worth contemplating?

‘Truth’ and the passionate vocal minority

This has been in me for some time.  I see myself in this.

Anytime my biases rise up within me and I start to toot a certain tune, I’m doing both myself and others consuming me a potential disservice... if the truth I espouse (MY truth) doesn’t accord for the gaps in my knowledge, motivation, love, and other factors I’m unaware of or don’t care to cater for.

I admit, I’m as susceptible as anyone is.

Especially when I’m passionate (read, upset) by a thing.

~

The vocal minority speak a sliver of truth without ever representing the whole truth.

We all see only part of the truth, yet our human biases have us setting up to conduct a trade in truth—i.e., using the word “truth,” it conveys “truth” in its absolute sense; nobody talks about truth in a partial sense.

Truth is something we all feel we can genuinely trade in, and that’s because we’re all passionate for it.

But as God’s ways are NOT our ways, nor are God’s thoughts our thoughts (Isaiah 55:8-9), we miss the mark every single time.  (I don’t need to spiritualise this, but let’s assume for the sake of a well-reasoned argument that “GOD” is the entirety of truth—like, lock, stock, and barrel.)

None of us see everything there is to see, 
nor are any of us interested morally in 
EVERY corner of the truth.

Yet vocal minorities speak authoritatively on subjects they’re usually not subject matter experts on.

Vocal minorities have their position, informed by a broad range of prejudice and bias, and the views of the experts they choose to align with—to the exclusion of those experts who speak different truths.  Sure, there are subject matter experts that have their own reasons and motivations adverse to non-mainstream lines.  They have SOME truth, but not ALL the truth.

The point is, nobody has a corner of the whole truth, yet governments have the ROLE (yes, that’s why we elect them; to rule over us) to develop policy around the values that presumably the people have said are important (gets back to the vote).

When a vocal minority gets upset that a government is ‘controlling’ society, for one current instance, they need to remember that THIS is the government’s role: to govern, which is to make decisions from established policies, and the government is empowered to execute these decisions—to enact them.

Not only do governments make and execute policy, they’re also accountable to the voter for their performance.  I know there’s a lot of nuance in all this, but there is a measure of justice for the power governments hold—a perfect justice, no, not for any government, and this is part of the imperfect life we’ve been born into.

Anyone who thinks that one party or side of government is consistently better than another side is deluded—our individual values don’t represent everyone’s values.

In the social media world we live in, we’re reminded that our voice is not only our power, but also our responsibility too.  Does our voice always represent the entire truth?

Can anyone hold their hand to their heart—before this God of truth—and say they have?

Would we intentionally mislead others?  And how often do we ask ourselves, “Am I being misled?”

We’re all counselled to show more restraint when we speak our truth.

Remembering those precious Dad-Daughter Dates

One thing you discover when life hasn’t turned out as you expect is resources you never thought you had.  When I found myself to be a single father of three daughters, 11, 8, and 5 at the time, all four of us came together to be stronger as a family whenever we had the opportunity.

If it was after school, we found a park with play equipment and played games like the monster game.  There were certain rules like when you’re on the equipment you’re safe but being on the sand or soft fall was where the monster could chase.  Not quite the same as the clean-up game, but a game all the same.

We made every encounter a date in those early 2004-2007 days.  Many times we also did shopping dates at Harbour Town, when we’d usually stay half or even a full day trying clothes on, browsing, etc.  My job was to simply be patient, and to open space for my growing daughters to express themselves through fashion.

My two older daughters helped me give my youngest daughter a ‘princess date’ one time in Fremantle.  On another occasion (pictured), in 2007, we went to the Father-Daughter Ball, both done up to the nines.

But it was during my daughters’ teen years and beyond where we structured one-to-one dates around coffee and meals and shopping and chats.  We developed traditions, each daughter with me, some that came and went, and others that have stayed.  In these one-to-one dates, we’ve talked about all sorts of things, and I’m so thankful for their trust as much as I’m thankful I’ve been blessed to trust them.

I write this at a time when they’re all together but we’re physically apart.  They’re all grown up now and in the phase of their own family lives.

As parents we’re blessed to raise our children, and as I was reminded tonight, when they’re getting older, our opportunity is to not speak many words, but to listen and support, just as we’d appreciate that listening and support if it were given to us.

No matter what happens in our families, we can always be thankful for trust and respect forged in earlier times.  If that isn’t the case yet in our personal circumstances, it’s not too late to forge what will in future be precious memories for the love shared.