HopeForYourFamily

So – Thanksgiving Day has passed, your family members will be expecting Christmas gifts from you this year, you haven’t bought anything yet because your budget is stretched tight as a snare drum, and you are wondering how you can save as much money as possible this Christmas season while everyone else spends a ton to boost our nation’s woeful economy.  What to do?!  Never fear.  I have some low cost, high investment Christmas gift ideas that will take some time and effort, but have the potential to pay lifetime dividends for your family.  (Please feel free to send a link to my gift list to your friends and relatives!)

A Phoneless Wire - Yes, you are reading that correctly.  Not a wireless phone.  A phoneless wire.  This low cost, low tech communication accessory is already available in virtually every home, but is usually sadly neglected.  To utilize this marvelous connectivity device, simply turn off all cell phones in the house, unplug all land-line phones, and leave one phone wire plugged into a jack – without a phone plugged in the other end.  Leave all phones at this status for a predetermined length of time, and enjoy conversation, connection, and simple presence with family members without interruption.  I highly recommend leaving all household screens (TV, computer, electronic game devices, etc) turned off during this time, but this isn’t an absolute.  I challenge you and your family to do this one evening or weekend every month for the next year, and tell me if this doesn’t do FAR more to help keep your family connected than equipping each family member with the latest wireless phone and sub-notebook computer.

Gift Certificate Book - You don’t have to run out to Stuff-Mart, Cholesterol Kitchen, Toys-That-Require-More-Batteries-Than-Imagination-R-Us, Cell Phone Heaven, or your local mall for this gift certificate book.  You will have to spend some time, effort, and creativity.  And, come coupon-redemption time, you will likely have to spend even more time and self-discipline.  Here it is.  Just make a list of activities, conversations, and meaningful moments you know your child/teen would love you to share, but that you know you don’t share as often as your child would like.  Depending on your child’s age, your creativity, and how much you are willing to “spend,” your coupons could include items such as: – lunch with Dad or Mom – power to plan a family fun night just the way you want it – one free pass on curfew (with some kind of reasonable limitation) – a camping trip with Mom or Dad and no siblings – breakfast at a nice restaurant with Dad or Mom – commitment from Mom or Dad to read one book or watch one movie of your choosing, without complaining or passing judgment – a free pass to skip one day of school (not for tests or other such days) – power to cancel Dad or Mom’s other plans one day/evening, and do something together – etc.

New Stories - Kids love stories, whether from books, movies, TV, games, or from real live people.  DVDs, computer games, and books are fine for Christmas presents, and I’m a big fan of all three (anyone looking to sell any games for your 80’s Nintendo?).  But it will cost you far more, while spending less money, if you give your kids the gift of YOUR stories this year.  Take time during the Christmas holiday season to share at least one story with your child or whole family that you have never shared with them before.  This can be especially powerful if you intentionally choose a personal story that relates to something your child is facing right now in her/his own life.  Bonus points if the story includes you doing something dumb (provided you don’t tell it to threaten them about what will happen if they don’t shape up).  Extra bonus points if the story includes you getting into trouble, humiliated, or otherwise paying a price for doing something dumb (again – be careful about preaching).

Have yourself a merry little Christmas!

Join the “Advent Conspiracy.” (Thanks, Lisa!)
Dr. Roger

(You can watch the video of this interview here.  Click on the picture of me holding out a white “phoneless wire.”)

Tags: parenting

May your turkey be plentiful, your dressing be moist, your ham be honey glazed, your beans be hearty, your tea be sweeter than is reasonably necessary, your cranberry sauce be sliced in perfect gelatinous cylinders, and your pecan pie be richer than a bank ceo after a US government bailout package.

Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family!

With Hope (from the beach) – Roger

Tags: family

Tune in to WAFB, channel 9, at 6:15-ish on Friday morning before you go hit the stores for Christmas shopping and boosting the nation’s economy.  I will be sharing some recommendations for Christmas gifts that cost little or no money, but can make a lifetime investment in your children/teens.  If breaking news preempts my interview, or for those who are unable to tune in, you can click here next week, and the video should be posted on WAFB’s Parenting 101 page.  And if you want to read my gift recommendations, they will posted on my site at air time Friday morning – check back then.  For more of my Parenting 101 recommendations, click on my Parenting 101 page.

Tags: parenting

Still Making News in Theaters When it comes to moviemaking, you don’t often hear of production companies that look to the story of Jesus taking five loaves and two fish and feeding thousands as inspiration. Nor do you hear of productions committed to daily prayer for their efforts and the impact that their movie could have on society.So maybe we shouldn’t surprised by what FIREPROOF has done in theaters across the country. Only five times before FIREPROOF came along had a movie been made for a budget of $500,000 or less and done more than $30 million in box-office receipts. Talk about your fish and loaves.But all along, from the initial story idea to the 800 theaters that will still be showing the film this week, the focus has been about the impact of this film on moviegoers. Impact like this: “My wife had filed for divorce in August after 20 years of marriage. … Through God, we saved our marriage and the movie was a model for both of us. The music is inspirational; I play it every day, and I gave my wife the soundtrack for her car. We read The Love Dare together at night. We are closer than ever, and we are in a completely different world with God at the center of our lives. FIREPROOF is a God-given message to us to come to Him with our lives and to heal our marriages instead of tossing them aside, as our disposable culture would have us do.” The more than 2,100 stories posted at FireprooftheMovie.com help tell the story of the difference FIREPROOF has made in the lives and marriages of the 4 million people that have seen it since it opened in late September. If movie theaters focused on impact, the run for FIREPROOF would be endless. Read More Stories

Tags: culture, hope, marriage / relationships, media, movies

Our household is in full-on Kung Fu Panda mode right now.  Don’t tell my son’s school teachers or principal, please!  It’s a peace-loving Montessori school, and Kung Fu definitely wouldn’t go over well on that playground.  But, he’s a boy who is about to turn five years old, and I’m his Dad.  And I believe he needs to learn about being peaceful, as well as being a warrior.  After all, Ecclesiastes still says, “There is a time for war, and a time for peace.”  But I digress.

Back to Jack Black and the crew on Kung Fu Panda.  Great show – thoroughly enjoyed it!  Being set in China, it is obvious to me that much of the wisdom shared by the sage in the story, Master Oogway the venerable turtle who discovered/invented Kung Fu, is based on Buddhist philosophy.  This may make some of you really squeamish.  Here I am, this Christian counselor, referencing Buddhist wisdom.  If you need to click away at this point at get some fresh air, go for it.  I’ll never know, nor would I be upset if I did.  Anyway, there are several moments where Oogway offers these great one-liners of wisdom to his protege, Shifu, who is on his way to becoming the grand master.  One line in particular struck me as a profound truth.

Oogway has just shared with Shifu the vision he has had that Tai Lung, the most dangerous and feared Kung Fu warrior in all the land, will escape from his ultimate maximum security prison and return to try and seize the secret to limitless power.  Shifu is horrified and frightened, and he immediately turns to his servant and tells him to send word to the one-inmate prison that they should double the guards and everthing else.  Tai Lung must not be allowed to escape!  As the servant, a crane, flies away in a flutter to deliver the urgent message, Master Oogway slowly turns to Shifu and offers this quiet, yet thunderous, statement,

“One often meets his destiny on the path he takes to avoid it.”

So true!  I have seen countless situations in my life, my friends’ and family members’ lives, and my clients’ lives when this very dynamic played out with ironic precision.  For example:

- I am so afraid you might cheat on me, so I will hover and interrogate to ensure your fidelity, which frustrates you so much that you slowly pull away from me emotionally and end up going to someone else for intimacy and security.

- I love my child so much that I just can’t bear to see her/him get hurt, so I will protect my child as much as I possibly can, even shielding the child from the painful consequences of his/her own foolish choices, which trains my growing child to become either highly irresponsible or highly thin-skinned, both of which ultimately lead to much greater suffering than she/he would have experienced from those smaller consequences along the way.

- I am so afraid of being rejected for who I am that I will run to the false intimacy of pornography where I get all gratification and no rejection, which then creates huge problems in my marriage or serious relationship, and may even lead my wife or girlfriend to “reject me” because of my emotional/visual infidelity of choosing safe images over her real self.

- I am so afraid of being rejected for who I am that I will constantly badger my spouse with questions and comments designed to elicit reassurance of love, which so burdens and taxes my spouse with the persistent effort of trying to fill my needy, leaking love-tank, that he/she finally quits offering affirmation and may ultimately quit being around me.

Master Oogway would make a great therapist, in my humble opinion.  “One often meets his destiny on the path he takes to avoid it.”  And, not to spoil the plotline for you, but turns out Oogway is on the money with his pronouncement.  Right on, wise turtle!

For more Oogway posts, here ya go: More Wisdom from Oogway and  Daily Gift

Tags: family, marriage / relationships, movies, oogway, parenting

True story – unreal story:

A few days ago I was nearing the end of a rich conversation with a good friend of mine, a man who walks closely with his Lord and whose faith walk has helped to shape my own for the better.  We were sitting outside PJ’s Coffee Shop in downtown Baton Rouge, enjoying the good coffee, strong friendship, beautiful weather, and a great dialogue about the importance of growing in personal integrity, responsibility, and honesty.  Good stuff!

Up walks a man who promptly positions himself toward us in a way I have come to immediately recognize during my time of working downtown.  He asks us for money.  I have heard this many times now, so it wasn’t new for me.  It was the first time, however, I have actually heard someone say “I am a starving man.  Can you help me?”  Starving – that’s a strong word.  I calmly tell him I have no cash on me, and that I can’t help him.  (An honest, yet somewhat avoidant response on my part.)  My friend, however, looks into the window of the coffee shop, sees the pastries, and says to the man, “Come in here with me and let me buy you a muffin.”  (A more engaged response that reflects a similar unwillingness just to hand him cash, but a willingness to feed the man if he is, indeed, starving.)

The guy pauses for just a moment, gets this somewhat scoffing look on his face, and says, “I don’t do muffins.”  I kid you not.  I’m giving you exact dialogue here.  “I don’t do muffins!”

And then came the best part of the interaction.  My friend, without reacting in some bent-out-of-shape way, responds to him with, “If you’re STARVING, I’ll be glad to buy you a muffin.”  Another pause, longer this time.  “Oh well, thanks anyway,” says our brazen beggar, and away he walks.

I offer this story, not as some kind of judgment on people who ask you for money, although this may well apply to many of them.  I share this story to reflect how badly our society has regressed from its foundation of personal responsibility, self-discipline, courage, and sacrifice of momentary comfort to a culture of immediate gratification, laziness, fear, and a grossly inflated elevation of “rights.”

But it isn’t just beggars on the street.  It is our children.  Our neighbors.  Our spouses.  Our friends.  Our selves.  And each time you and I give in to the unhealthy demands of such emotional children, we make momentary peace and fuel a much greater, long-term, deep-seated problem that seems to be spiraling out of control.  If I “help” someone by giving in to their childishness, I am not, in fact helping them.  I am actually partnering with them to contribute to even greater depths of emotional, behavioral, relational, spiritual immaturity in their lives.  That isn’t helpful!  It isn’t loving!  It isn’t compassionate!  But it’s what the immature person wants, because it feels good now.

Do you have the courage and the grit to stand in both compassion and strength, making firm, loving decisions about your actions toward others, despite whatever pressure they may apply to get you to act the way they want?  Do I?  What I believe is that I can only help you grow to the same level of this compassionate strength I have attained.  And so, for my own health, for the health of my family and friends, and for your sake, I continue to face the tough battlegrounds in my self and my relationships.

I want to grow stronger like my friend, Eddie.  And I know that he, like me, seeks to grow stronger like our friend, Jesus.  And the Good News is, Jesus is actually forming both of us more into His likeness with each day we walk with Him.  He is teaching both of us to love our selves and others more fully, so we can act in the best interest of people – not just according to their/our emotional whims.  And that is very Good News!

Tags: coffee, culture, hope, leadership, personal responsibility

Well, America has spoken, and spoken resoundingly…”We need new leadership!”  As always, regardless of party, platform, ideology, etc., my hope and prayer is that the people of our nation will seek God and strive to live what is right.  My prayers are with President-elect Obama and the rest of our newly elected leaders.  I am under no delusion that my humble blog is a hot spot among our national elected leaders.  However, my hope is that some of these folks would read “A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix” by Edwin Friedman, a man who I genuinely believe understood human dynamics as well as anyone since Jesus walked the streets of Jerusalem.  I’m not saying Friedman understood us all as our Lord does – not for a minute.  But this guy got it like few ever have in history.  We need strong leaders with the nerve, backbone, guts, or whatever you want to call it to stand up against the current climate of anxiety, emotional reactivity, elavation of safety over adventure, and elevation of personal “rights” over personal responsibility, and make choices based on integrity and principle.  I sincerely hope and pray Obama is that kind of man.  May God bless Barack Obama, and may God bless America!

Tags: culture, leadership

Life can seem so full of challenges, struggles, and obstacles that we can get really serious about everything.  Sure, there is a place for gearing up and facing the tough stuff with our best courage and skill.  But, you know, sometimes one of the best things we can do is to lighten up a bit.  Feel free to laugh at yourself now and then.  While you’re at it, laugh at the folks around you.  Now, I’m not talking about disrespect and mockery.  But let’s face it – there’s a lot of goofiness going around in the human race, and sometimes it helps just to acknowledge it by laughing at our own, well…humanity.

Take, for example, my interview tonight with Jacques Ducet, sports anchor for WAFB.  He interviewed me to get my professional insights regarding the possible parallels between what he termed the “jilted lover syndrome” and the ongoing animosity of many Tiger fans toward a certain guy who we’ll call “Nick S.” who plans to be in Baton Rouge this weekend with several dozen big guys in crimson.  Some might have cautioned me not to do such an interview, as it could be harmful to my reputation and career.  To which I say, Lighten Up!  I was intrigued to get a voice mail from Jacques, wanting to interview me.  When I called him back and found out what he had in mind, I didn’t hesitate.  “I’ll be there.  Sounds fun.”

Granted, as I write this post, we are a few minutes yet before news time, and I don’t know how our somewhat mischievious sports anchor will edit and present the piece.  But it’s cool.  I’m not worried about it.  It was a fun idea, and a good reminder to me to not take myself too seriously.  Geaux Tigers!

Tags: community