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Communication
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She’s really upset at what I did when we broke up….
07 Mar 2012 by Rod Smith / No Comments
“My girlfriend broke up with me. A few days later, while I was depressed about what she did to me, I was intimate with another woman. Now my girlfriend and I are back together and she is really upset about what I did. She doesn’t see that she caused it. She is finding it hard to forgive me. Please help.”
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This, sir, is your chance to grow, not go…..
05 Mar 2012 by Rod Smith / No Comments
“I met my wife when she was 17. We married fours year later and have been happily for the past 15 years. Recently she revealed a sexual relationship from before we met. While dating we agreed to wait until our wedding night and I believed she was a virgin. This news has taken me by surprise. I cannot get over what my wife has done. I have asked for a separation. My challenge is that I do not view her as I have for all these years. I feel betrayed and cannot deal with this anymore.” (Edited)
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A life of Grace
01 Mar 2012 by Rod Smith / 1 Comment
- Makes room for the marginalized.
- Offers hospitality to strangers.
- Allows others room for frequent error.
- Exercises immediate and planned generosity.
- Communicates efficiently, clearly.
- Removes guesswork and the need to mind-read.
- Forgives rapidly and keeps short accounts.
- Ignores hints and expects others to be forthcoming about what they need and want.
- Shares life very deeply with a few people.
- Embraces correction.
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Granddaughter uses foul language on FaceBook. What should I do?
29 Feb 2012 by Rod Smith / 1 Comment
“My granddaughter is ‘friends’ with me on Facebook so I to read all her comments which are sometimes not nice. It’s actually not nice language either. My daughter would not be happy and I don’t want to be a tell tale. Do I keep it to myself and keep praying? Do I delete her and therefore have my head in sand? Not only I can see all her comments but so can many other people.”
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Don’t knock my PowerPoint
29 Feb 2012 by Rod Smith / 1 Comment
“As a frequent speaker, lecturer, and teacher, I found myself agreeing with you except for your comment on PowerPoint. I presume your comment refers to motivational talks. While PowerPoint can be dry, I do not believe it is always a cop-out. I would like you to reconsider your strong generalized statement. Consider the Visual Arts. I teach design classes in the visual arts and find it a superb way of presenting visual material to my audience and students. It gives me the opportunity to select and arrange images and I can travel to teach without carrying bulky photographic slides. My audience may come to my lecture having read your ‘cop-out’ comment. Perhaps you would like to amend your generalization.”
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Verbal log-jam
When I was a boy I’d endlessly practice the fluent delivery of my name but it seldom flowed easily from my lips. As if it was new news to me, adults pointed out my stutter. Perhaps they thought I was beginning, at that precise moment, for the first time in my life to spit from the mouth, twist at the neck, jig my head back and forth trying to expel some inane statement log-jammed between my gut and my throat.
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Life in our beloved 122
If the inside of a house (outside, too, I suppose) is a metaphor of the lives of the people who live in it – which is something I once read somewhere – gosh, are we in trouble. Our house is a mess.
I consistently clean it room by room, thinking often of the legend that the Golden Gate Bridge that says there’s some guy constantly painting it. I feel for him. While I am sure the view is wonderful I must believe that the poor guy whose doing it daily from one end to the other must find the wind and the weather quite a challenge.
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Being a white South African can come with complications
Being a white South African reared under Apartheid is no simple matter. It permeated everything for me. While I do not pretend to have been a political activist, I was always cognizant that my privileges, simply a result of being born white, were unmerited, and most unfair especially when enjoyed at the expense of others who were not. I think this unsettling truth (for I took advantage of my station in life) was somewhat of a companion to me from the age of about six or seven.
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Location, location – remembering winter in August
We live very close to our school and church, so close we can hear the school bell from our kitchen and the church bells in my bedroom.
Sometimes we walk to both and we don’t see the car for days.
I like it. I like not having to get in and out of the car. I like not having to negotiate traffic, something as synonymous with life in the USA as Disney, Fast Food, and the Fourth of July.
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Ready to adopt?
If you wait until you are ready to adopt a child you never will because you will never be ready. The baby, and only the baby, will make you ready. Reading the right books will be helpful, but “ready” magically comes upon you when a real baby is sleeping in your arms or crying in the middle of the night. If you are not ready to change diapers – and I always am amused at the big deal about this non-issue – being unprepared will last only as long as a clean diaper.
Life inside the Smith household
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