Latest column below: click on heading for full article

• I am coming to KZN and I’d like to help…….

  I think that what I do best is assist families, churches, businesses, and groups to understand and/or resolve problems. Yes, family dynamics, territorial squabbles, leadership conflicts are indeed my passion!

  I’d like to use my now limited time in KZN (July 4 to August 7) well, and I welcome the chance to be involved in helpful, healing dialogue.

  Dare 1: If you are a spiritual leader it’s likely you seldom associate with neighbors from other churches or faith traditions. This disconnect detracts from your credibility. I challenge you to have the humility to initiate lunch with those “others” and invite me to present an informal, non-threatening discussion on “Five Inescapable Truths About All Faith Communities.”

  Dare 2: If you are facing a painful family, business, or any complex human situation, let me know. I challenge you to get as many key players around a table as possible and let me help you listen and learn from each other and find solutions, or negotiate acceptable compromises.

  Dare 3: Invite me to visit if you want to understand, from a systemic perspective, what is going on in your business, church, or family.

  (Psst: If you think you know someone who needs this column snip it out of the paper and slip it into the “right” hands).

• I don’t usually hide our issues……..

  Days back I wrote a response to a parent who’s 15-year-old son wanted more “space.” The young man thought he needed a little less hands-on parenting, more freedom to navigate his life. Remember?

  I was surprised that several readers thought I was really writing about my own son, that I had disguised my son’s pleas in a letter as if it was from a reader. This amused me indeed.

  First, I don’t usually hide our issues.

  Second, Thulani, if anything, wants LESS space.

  He knows he has lots of freedom.

  Once, in a discussion about parenting styles, I playfully asked him if I was a “helicopter parent.” In a flash he replied that I am indeed not a helicopter parent AT ALL but rather more like a submarine parent.

  I took this as a compliment and asked no further questions.

  “But what are you tough on with your children?” writes one parent. There’s a hint the reader thinks my children are perfect or that all is hunky-dory at our home.

  I am very tough on truth, respectful talk, and good manners. I am very relaxed about their freedom to plan their social lives.

  Thus far, by Grace alone, things are faring well – I think.

• I’m a dad because you were brave…..

  It’s Father’s Day soon. Celebrating my own father, E. W. G. Smith, never posed a problem for me. He had a generous heart. He’d give the shirts off our backs to anyone in need.

  But, this day has held amplified meaning for me since April 1, 1998 – the day the first of my two sons was born.

  First, one brave woman, and then another, now continents apart, made the courageous choice to place their infants with me, and, in doing so, made me a dad.

• The Open Hand Essay

  Open your hand using all your strength. Stretch your fingers. Allow the lines on your palm to feel as though they might tear apart. Study the contours, colors, ridges and valleys, joints, dents and spaces. Push, pull, and rub. Move your fingers through their paces: together, apart, back, forward, curved, strained, and relaxed, cooperative, yet unique. Feel the texture and every curve. Touch the crevices. Spread your hand further, turn it at the wrist, examine and compare patterns from every angle. Here are pieces of yourself you might never have studied.

  Your hands are your constant companions. They have met the needs of others, pioneered romantic moments and worn rings of commitment. They are the way your heart leaves fingerprints, the eyes at the end of your arms. Hands reflect a person’s being and are the front line agents of your life. If eyes are said to be the windows of a soul, hands express the soul.

• My mother in law says I looked disgusting in my wedding dress

  “I’m seriously considering in adopting a ‘no more effort’ towards my mother-in-law. We have no children for her to help nurture. She told me I looked disgusting in my wedding dress and that it was a disgusting dress and that my husband, ‘didn’t know what he was looking for.” We met at 16. Once she said she couldn’t wait to have a blonde blue-eyed grandchild. I’m brunette with dark features and so is her son. I confronted her once and I was told I was a psychopath with emotional ‘issues’. She wanted her son to break up with me when we had an argument over it. I’m am an extremely successful female in the corporate world. I go above and beyond with effort. I even took her to Thailand for a ‘girls’ retreat’ as a Mother’s Day present. I’m not unattractive – been told so – so I think it’s true. Please help.”

  It appears you have offered a woman too much power and influence over your life. You are her daughter-in-law, not a punching bag.

  Apply the skills and the raw talent that have led to your success in the corporate world to your relationship with your mother-in-law.

Further reading (click on heading for full article)

• 11 Jun 2013

  The Open Hand Essay

  Open your hand using all your strength. Stretch your fingers. Allow the lines on your palm to feel as though they might tear apart. Study the contours, colors, ridges and valleys, joints, dents and spaces. Push, pull, and rub. Move your fingers through their paces: together, apart, back, forward, curved, strained, and relaxed, cooperative, yet unique. Feel the texture and every curve. Touch the crevices. Spread your hand further, turn it at the wrist, examine and compare patterns from every angle. Here are pieces of yourself you might never have studied.

  Your hands are your constant companions. They have met the needs of others, pioneered romantic moments and worn rings of commitment. They are the way your heart leaves fingerprints, the eyes at the end of your arms. Hands reflect a person’s being and are the front line agents of your life. If eyes are said to be the windows of a soul, hands express the soul.

• 10 Jun 2013

  My mother in law says I looked disgusting in my wedding dress

  “I’m seriously considering in adopting a ‘no more effort’ towards my mother-in-law. We have no children for her to help nurture. She told me I looked disgusting in my wedding dress and that it was a disgusting dress and that my husband, ‘didn’t know what he was looking for.” We met at 16. Once she said she couldn’t wait to have a blonde blue-eyed grandchild. I’m brunette with dark features and so is her son. I confronted her once and I was told I was a psychopath with emotional ‘issues’. She wanted her son to break up with me when we had an argument over it. I’m am an extremely successful female in the corporate world. I go above and beyond with effort. I even took her to Thailand for a ‘girls’ retreat’ as a Mother’s Day present. I’m not unattractive – been told so – so I think it’s true. Please help.”

  It appears you have offered a woman too much power and influence over your life. You are her daughter-in-law, not a punching bag.

  Apply the skills and the raw talent that have led to your success in the corporate world to your relationship with your mother-in-law.

• 09 Jun 2013

  What can I do about my really UNHAPPY friend?

  “My friend is very unhappy person. She complains about everything all the time and nothing pleases her for too long. I begin to blame myself. It is as if I am doing something wrong. Please help.”

  My heart goes out to both of you. But, trying to make unhappy people happy, is an impossible pursuit. Suggest a medical check up – and then leave it all up to her.

  If someone is already an unhappy person, a new job, new marriage, a new car, a new anything will not make her happy. But, unhappy people often get temporary highs of “happiness” with new things and new circumstances, but the unhappiness soon emerges. It creeps back like an old carpet stain.

  I suggest discontented people, who really want change, get involved in their own reinvention, and do so without BUYING anything, without switching jobs, without moving homes, and without attaching themselves to anyone new.

  Your friend could:

  Get involved in a cause greater than her own (un)happiness.
  Make peace, as far as it is possible, with her past.
  Give away something she owns and values every day for at least two weeks.
  Stop blaming any common scapegoats like an unhappy childhood, tough parents, no parents, and take responsibility for her own happiness.

  Few people are happy ALL the time – but if someone is unhappy MOST of the time, it’s of course, a real drag on those in their realms of influence.

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Life inside the Smith household

• Living in an “Intentional Community”…..

  It’s coming into fashion – this living in community thing, although it’s hardly a new idea – actually it is rather quite ancient.

  But, having 16 years of intentional community living under our belts, I believe, the people at Open Hand, Inc. have some valuable perspective regarding what it means to live “in community.”

  Here’s a few fundamentals from me. Others (in the same community) may see things quite differently. This is one of the joys of being in an intentional community, everyone gets to uniquely see, know, and interpret everything. We are a group, but there is no expected or imposed “groupthink” – of course it happens (the groupthink thing, given that when people spend a lot of time together and read a lot of the same books it is inevitable – but it is not expected).

• Things I have learned from my 10-year-old son

  1. Swimming is the same as having a bath or taking a shower.
  2. Taking a real bath or shower using actual soap and actual shampoo makes you clean for four days.
  3. Licking your fingers is the same as washing your hands.
  4. Turning your clothing inside out it is the same as putting on clean clothes.
  5. Eating an apple is the same as brushing your teeth.
  6. Putting on a shirt by pulling it over your head combs your hair.
  7. Making your bed wastes playing time because you get into it at night.
  8. Eating potato chips gives you all the vegetables you need.
  9. Tidying a bedroom is ridiculous if you can already see any part of the floor or carpet.
  10. Sleeping wastes play time except on school days.
  11. You can climb and throw anything if you really want to.
  12. Flossing and flushing should be avoided.
  13. All bodies of water must be disturbed, no matter how peaceful or beautiful, you must throw something into it.
  14. Lit candles anywhere, like on a birthday cake or on a table in a restaurant must be disturbed; they must NEVER be left alone.

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