The Elephant in the Closet

Take a  Google eyed view of your neighborhood and you will see the roofs of many households. Have you ever wondered how many of those families have a skeleton in the closet?  I’ll wager you that the answer is most of them.  A skeleton in the closet is something shameful and potentially damaging if exposed. Therefore an individual or even the whole family tries to conceal it. The problem with something shameful being hidden away is that sometimes it may get out on its own. How stressful and fearful that must be. So why not just let the skeleton out yourself by admitting the wrong? 

Sadly, if your letting out your secret is not handled in just the right way, it may become the elephant in the room.  

An elephant in the room is an important and obvious topic which everyone present is aware of, but is never discussed because it is too uncomfortable. So once you tire of this elephant in the room, you banish it back to the closet. But then you will have an elephant in your closet. So what is the best way of admitting a serious wrong? I'm talking about personal wrongs here involving a family member not  about prosecutable crimes. Talk to someone else about it first, a neutral spiritual person who can give wise counsel. Also pray hard for God to give you just the right opportunity and forum to let it out in. Admitting the truth will not be easy but it will bring both freedom and healing to your household. In the long run you will not regret getting rid of  all the skeletons and elephants in your life. Once you allow light into your life you will begin to see the goodness that you've' been missing. 

Summer of tough love in San Francisco

I didn't go to Haight and Ashbury streets when I first visited San Francisco back in 1977 towards the end of the hippie era. I am sure it was different then because Jimi, Janice and Jim Morrison had only been gone for just six or seven years back then.  Now in June of 2013, I was finally able to visit the birthplace of hippiedom's flower children. I rode a crowded city bus up from downtown San Francisco which let me off right there at Haight and Ashbury. Today the area is a tourist destination with many gift shops lining both sides of the street for a seven block area. There were lots of young people around as they once were in that bygone era some of them local. Others were tourists like me, and still others were young people backpacking their way there from far off states. These young people weren't hippies in the classic sense but maybe some of them were the sons and daughters of hippies.

My observations were that many young people seemed to be living off the land and living on the streets of San Francisco. Some of the young people hanging out there were trying to look hip but they seemed scruffy and their clothes were threadbare and tattered. I heard some of them talking and I could definitely hear a hard street edge in their voices.   It would be unfair for me to judge the whole area by just a few and I am not doing that. I'm just saying that I did observe an unusually large number of young homeless people hanging around the San Francisco area on these two particular summer days in June of 2013. 

Haight street dead ends at Golden Gate Park. I looked towards the park from across the street. I could see that there were many young people congregating in that park but I was too far away to see what they were about. Overall, Haight- Ashbury is a historic, well maintained  and clean area, with beautiful old houses. 

My research into the area concluded that it is very expensive to live in San Francisco. The average house there will cost you about a million dollars and that is allot of bread. I explored several other parts of the city of San Francisco and it my opinion the city is very beautiful and I am in love with it as I have been since my first visit in 1977 and twice more since. But beware of moving there if you don’t have a well paying job or at least very good prospects, homelessness awaits you there. 

Men Express More Love (than you think)

My theory is this. Not only are men just as romantic as women are but men may actually be even more romantic than women. 

I was watching the Bachelorette show on TV with my wife who likes and watches almost every season of those shows. I asked her, who has the most drama, the men on the Bachelorette show or the women on the Bachelor show? She replied that, "the men on the Bachelorette show seem to have more drama than women because, we are not expecting men to express strong feelings as much as women do." She added that, "In general women more often than men  express their emotions." 

I have heard this before that women are more emotional, more romantic, more loving, and more tender hearted and that they express their feelings much more often than men do. On the other hand we men are viewed as being, unimaginative and unable to express our feelings although sometimes, we might have a good heart. Suddenly, I was hit by an inspiration coming out of my great love for music; so I asked her this question. "If men so rarely express their feelings, then why is it that men write most of the love songs?"  “You know, you may have something there,” she said. What do you think? Below are two links; the first being the lyrics to a love song called, ‘I’ll have to say I love you in a song’, by Jim Croce and the second link is for a list of the top100 love songs list which also shows the songwriters names. This is not scientific but the lists that I have seen sure seem to back up my hypothesis about men being even more romantic that women.  Feel free to check out my earlier post entitled: The Saint Valentine’s Day Reversal, for more on this topic.

Love and Divorce

“The look of love is in your eyes. A look your smile can’t disguise. The look of love is saying so much more than just words could ever say.” Those are words from a love song The Look of Love, written by Burt Bacharach & Hal David. Not long ago I sat in a court waiting for my turn to approach a judge concerning my client’s divorce matter. It was then that I noticed something about a man who had just finished having his divorce GRANTED. As he turned to leave, there was a look on his face that etched itself into my consciousness. He looked so resolute but also he looked deeply crushed. I imagined seeing him with a different expression on his face, in another public setting -on his wedding day. On that happy day he would have had The Look Of Love on his face and I wondered, where had the love he once had gone? 

Right after the sad man left a middle aged couple came forward. The husband was carrying a small plastic filing case in his hand which was no doubt filed with evidence to support his side of things but his lawyer paid no attention to what he carried.  This couple resembled each other as longtime spouses sometimes do. Their faces didn't betray any anger or sadness instead they just looked all business. Thoroughly ready to just get this divorce over with and get their property divided and to just move on. Their divorce too was GRANTED by the Court. I imagined them too as they may have looked on their wedding day: Him standing broad shouldered and smiling looking right at his bride and she the lovely bride dressed in her white gown, sharing The look of love with her beloved.  Where did their love go, why did it go? I really wanted to know because I never want to be in their shoes and carry that look of love's end on my face. There are just so many marriages in peril of coming apart like theirs aren't there? Or maybe your marriage already has ended. But if and when we find a new love what are the chances of the next marriage lasting? 

Perhaps we can take instruction from the Bible in Luke 8:1-15. This is the parable Jesus told about the soils. I will substitute the word love for the word seed in the parable just to illustrate a point. 

First off, there are those couples who do not marry for love. Perhaps they don’t even know what love is or maybe, love is simply not something that is essential to them. Their love is like the seed that falls along the path and is immediately eaten up by the birds. What little love they have, if any, is quickly taken away from their hearts before it can take root.

There are other people who fall in love quickly but perhaps their love is of a conditional or shallow nature. When their conditions are not met, the marriage is over. Their love is like the seed that falls on rocky soil. They love for awhile but when tested, they fall out of love and out of the marriage quickly.

Then there are some couples who I think are in the majority that marry for love. For awhile things are going just great in their life but then their feelings change. Their love gets choked out by life’s worries, riches and pleasures just like the seed that fell among the thorns; and when the plants grew they were choked out. My own marriage was most certainly one of these yet, I stubbornly and without justification cling to the belief that my marriage fell into the last category, the good soil category.

This last group which I believe it is a very small group, has a type of love that is like the seed that falls on good soil. In verse 15 it says; "Of noble and good heart retaining love and persevering to produce fruit." These lucky couples have the kind of  love that endures throughout their entire life together. 

I have known some couples who make marriage look easy but personally, I had to learn the hard way that marriage takes hard work and sacrifices. Consider the farmer who works the soil. Even with good soil, the farmer is not guaranteed a good crop. He still has to do backbreaking work tilling the soil, harvesting the crops and then repeating this hard work over and over again. The farmer must also be prepared for all manner of contingencies that may arise including bad weather and droughts. 

Perhaps we can gain hope from the realization that thorny soil conditions can be overcome through hard work like the farmer's. We will also receive lots of help from Jesus who is always ready to help us. When we are careful to do exactly as he says instead of relying on our own wisdom our marriage will succeed. Jesus will pour his love out into our hearts and this incredible love will overflow right into your spouse's heart. I have personally experienced this incredible miracle. By God's grace, I received much more than just a renewal of the love that I may have lost. I received a new love, a greater love than I had ever possessed before.  This is an experience that is too wonderful for anyone to miss. 

It has  been a few years since our marriage was transformed. But The look of love is still on our faces thanks be to God.  Good luck to all married couples and may God bless you with the will to work hard on your marriages and may you accept his help to succeed in your marriage. 

Super size that salad

Digging into my bowl shoveling green lettuce and red tomatoes into my mouth reminds me of the time the Earth was attacked by the Anortrists. They had sent down from orbit, giant siphons which carved up and stole everything green and alive that they touched. Shovel, shovel, shovel, on and on they went until they were satisfied. That is, until their storage bins were full. Then off they went back to their sterile, fake asteroid to eat. What we thought were naturally occurring ‘Acts of God’ like tornadoes and earthquakes were anything but that. These were the unnatural Acts of Aliens – though in a way; their behavior was natural enough, even earthly. You see aliens too have to eat; even though they didn't have the manners to ask first. I don’t recall Europeans asking the Indians for a continent first, how relatable they are to us.

Getting to "I love you!"

How to get to "I love you, Je t’aime or Te amo," when you meet somebody new?  For me this went very quickly because we 'clicked' right away when we first met. For some this love click takes a little longer.  What is this click? Well I don’t mean the Xhosa South African language click. The love click is when you suddenly realize that you like a person and there is nothing platonic about it. It is both an emotional connection and an intellectual one in equal measure. 

This doesn't mean that you will necessarily fully understand what it is you're feeling at that very moment. This realization will often come later but hopefully not too late. I say it’s an emotional reaction because you can feel it happen. It’s also an intellectual process because after some reflection and you still like the whole package, then take your shot at love. Sounds analytical but it worked for me and could work for you also.  Don’t forget to share with them how you feel and maybe play this song for good measure:  Don't Walk Away From Me one of my faves by Whitney Houston.

Fang Restaurant in San Francisco

Best Chinese food ever. Really!