Delicious Library

If you own a Mac (sorry PC users your out of luck as there is no PC version), you may want to check out this great little program called Delicious Library 2. Using your built in iSight camera as a bar reader, it can scan the UPC codes on any book and automatically enter it into your personal library. Besides the surprising fun of simply scanning and adding books, I find the program to be useful for several reasons:

1. You can in not only books but DVD's, music, toys, video games, tools, etc.
2. Want to borrow out a cool book to a friend? Easy, you can do it just like a real library. I wish I had stumbled on this years ago as I have so many outstanding books (with no way to track them) that it's not even funny!
3. You can make a back up of your library (great for insurance purposes) or post it to the internet for others to take a look at.
4. You can look at your library as a list, or in a bookshelf mode that is pleasing the eye.
5. For older or rare books you can input the book info manually and even take a picture of it.

I really love this program as scanning and looking at all of my books made me aware of (and interested in) some old books that I had forgotten I had. I'm thinking next year I'll make it a goal to read mostly books from my own collection (over 300 books). Anyway, thought I'd highlight this great little program (available for $39 on the Mac App Store) or from the Delicious Monster website.

Control Freak

Sometimes when I'm meeting with people they will tell me that their significant other (or kids) has told them they're a controller (or a control freak). Often they can't believe it - how could they say such a thing? Most people see themselves as caring very much for these people and they can't understand how their loved ones could see them this way. Perhaps you've had these labels applied to you?

When clients share this with me I like to help them to test if they are guilty of controlling or not. First of all, I help define controlling for them:

Controlling - using control behaviors.

Control behaviors - behaviors which are used to influence someone else's decision making, but in a way that does not respect their right to choose their own destiny (or without accepting the person's freedom to say no.) Control behaviors include demanding, angry outbursts, manipulating, guilting, pressuring, nagging, lecturing, bribing to control, silent treatment/withdrawing to control, etc.

Whenever we use these behaviors, not recognizing other people's rights to say no/choose their own actions, we are trying to control them. If we try to get them to change without controlling, it is influencing. People ALWAYS resent control behaviors. It is built into our DNA, we resist other people not respecting our freedom. When we trying to control others we damage our relationships with them, build resentment, and act in an unloving way towards them (control and love cannot go together). Because people make their own choices anyway (even if they feel controlled, they still choose their actions), control is always an illusion. You can't control anyway, so why try?

God doesn't control us . . . because he loves us. Control and love cannot co-exist. You can only control yourself (and that's really tough). We think controlling actions work but they don't. We may have someone go along with us in body, but not in their heart. And of course it's the heart that matters in the long run.

One of my clients has begun using this info on control at work (where he is a supervisor) and it is transforming his life. It's remarkable actually. He's way less stressed (and angry), has won the respect of his co-workers, and is teaching others. He's a recovering controller. Like me! My favorite control behavior to use was manipulation (makes sense coming from a counselor right?) but I've used them all. I pass on this info to others because it was very helpful for me. I'm definitely not perfect, but I'm recovering slowly. How about you?

A Costly Gift

Sometimes around Christmas I'll receive some gifts of appreciation from my clients. One particular client is a person gifted with a great intellect, a compassionate heart, and a sincere faith. But due to setbacks in his life he is very financially challenged. I know how small of a living space he lives in (smaller then most of your bedrooms), how much money he lives on, and how he doesn't have enough to take care of some of his most basic needs.

He surprised me recently by giving me a Christmas card with a Tim Horton's gift card in it. I was very moved by this gift. You see, it was the costliest gift I'd received this Christmas. It wasn't a lot but it was a huge gift. How so you might ask? What this man had freely given me was a much larger percentage of his income then any of the gifts anyone else had got me this Christmas. Wow. I was greatly humbled and greatly blessed.

His generosity reminded me of this passage:

As Jesus looked up, he saw the rich putting their gifts into the temple treasury. He also saw a poor widow put in two very small copper coins. “Truly I tell you,” he said, “this poor widow has put in more than all the others. All these people gave their gifts out of their wealth; but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on.”

Remind Me Again

What does it mean to "learn" something? Does it mean you grasp the concept, remember it, apply it, master it . . . what? The reason I ask is because so often we tell ourselves (or others) that we've learned our lesson but then we go and do the same (or similar) mistakes all over again. Have we really "learned" it? I often wonder.

For instance, I've learned some very good things about relationships. Wise, insightful, solidly practical things. Or at least I thought I did cause I later act as if I hadn't. "I've learned my lesson," someone says "No more snacking after 8pm." Or maybe it's drinking coffee (or alcohol), dating someone new when you've just broken up with someone, speeding, or talking about someone behind their back. Whatever it is, we seem to have a problem with unlearning what we have learned. Or in it's shorter form "forgetting."

We are terribly forgetful people. In solution focused therapy, one of the main interventions is simply to ask "Was their ever a time that this problem wasn't there . . . or wasn't this bad?" Most people respond with a time. "What were you doing different?" Most people can say what it was they were doing that helped. "What's stopping you from doing that again?" is the final question. So often we know what works, we just stop doing it and we "forget" how we solved the problem in the past. Even if the solution was brilliant. We just need to be reminded.

I fins that I need to be reminded about several things I thought I knew. These include:
-Getting to get to sleep on time makes me less grouchy.
-Consistently spending time with God feeds my soul.
-Not having a to do list in front of me at work task hurts my efficiency.
-I need time away to keep my zest for life, ministry, and God.
-Date Nights/one on one's with my wife/kids makes me happy.
-Spending more money then I make makes me insecure.
-An hour after eating at McDonald's I will feel gross, so don't even bother.

I had a couple come in the other day and tell me that they firmly believed that for their relationship to keep on prospering they needed to see a counselor once every few months ("to check the engine") and go to at least one marriage retreat a year. Basically it was so that the could be reminded of what they had already learned. The worst thing we can do is think "Well, I've learned that now so I guess life just goes. Good for me." The discipline of regularly reminding oneself of the important things is perhaps the greatest discipline of all.

We're almost at the end of the year. What are the important things that you don't want to forget that you've learned. How can you plan your year in a way that you are reminded and inspired about them? I'm planning to use my calendar and block in a whole bunch of things that I know are important - reminder times. I'll let you know if it works!

When Is The Best Time?

Something to reflect on:


The best time to plant a tree is twenty years ago.
The second best time is today.

-Chinese Proverb

The Money Tree

I found this interesting . . . and thought provoking. It reminded me of how people usually respond when I tell them that there are investments that make 25% a year (or how almost anyone who owns a home can own another one) - they just can't believe it. It takes an open person, someone not constricted to the ideas of what "should" or "can't be" to take advantage of the opportunities around them. And then after they see them . . . to take advantage of them. Great little experiment!

Deep Question For My Son

So I was swinging beside my 8 year old boy at a park today when I thought I would impulsively ask him a deep question. I'm continually amazed at his insightful responses. Today I tried a personal one. I turned to him casually and said "Riker, what do you want from me?"

He looked at me thoughtfully and then started thinking out loud. "Well . . . I guess it depends how you mean it." He was looking for clarification but I decided not to give him any. "That's true, " I said in that vague, counselor way that doesn't mean anything but invites more.

"I guess the biggest thing is your love," he said after a a moment or two of silence. I thought that was cool and it reminded me again how important it is to show your kids that you love them. Love is the most basic of all our needs and we tend to wither when we don't receive it. Then he gave me another answer. "Also, I want you to teach me things." Hmmm . . . interesting. Just the other day I was talking with a friend about how, even as adults, we crave to learn from our Dads. We want to learn from them, to be handed down important knowledge. "So what kind of things I asked?"

"I'd like you to help me with my homework. Sometimes I have lots to do and Mommy is too busy. And you usually are there but don't help. I'd like your help more." Ouch! That kind of hurt. I'm gone alot in the evenings since that is the time that most of my clients are available. I don't remember being home and having him ask me for assistance before but maybe he has. He is now. I mentally commit myself to being more available to help with that stuff. "I'd also like you to teach me how to survive in the outdoors." I liked this one more. Can I teach him this? Perhaps - I think I could help him survive for a few days at least! I have always felt a desire to pass on my love and knowledge (as little as it is) of outdoor things to Riker and he seems to instinctively want that very thing as well. Very cool.

I liked Riker's answers, he was open and honest about what he thought, felt, and wanted. If you ever feel things are getting a bit too shallow in your relationship with someone then try something different. Why not humbly ask them that simple question "What do you want from me?" More often then not you'll be amazed at the answers and the connection this particular conversation can foster.

A Sweet Moment

Today I dropped off my 8 year old Riker off at his very first week of camp at Beaver Creek Bible Camp. This is momentous enough but he is also staying in the very same cabin that I first stayed in when I first came to my first week of camp - how cool is that? Not to mention the fact that he was almost born at this camp (Jobina's water broke while we we were up at camp and he was born a few hours later after a terrifying drive to Winnipeg). I guess you could say that our family has a lot of history at this place.

Dropping him off today I tried to think about what it must have been like for my parents to drop me off to that very same cabin 26 years ago. Were they as excited for me as Jobina and I are for him? Were they nervous? I think about how that first camp experience changed my life - feeling the dedication and joy of not just my counselor but a whole camp staff dedicated to showing Christ's love. I remember the feelings of awe and mystery that surrounded me that first week of camp. Camp fires, exploring the bush, canoeing on the creek, listening to Bible stories before bed in my bunk. It was there that I first remember feeling a hunger to know and serve God. I had stayed as a camper in this cabin, then I was a counselor in it, later I was a camp director who walked by it and prayed for and occasionally disciplined those inside it, and now I was coming back to it again to drop off my eldest son. A sweet moment indeed. All these thoughts and memories ran through my mind as we walked up to "River Bend Pad" this morning. I felt like I was walking on holy ground.

Riker seems a lot more confident and a lot less shy then I was (I remember feeling so nervous that I almost wanted to throw up) but when I asked him how he slept the night before he told me "I woke up a few times worrying if the other kids would like me." Ah, my son, I know how you feel! My prayer for him is that he will be safe, have fun, and most off that God would get ahold of him in a powerful way. It is a bit of a harrowing thing to surrender your children to a camp for a week - even if you know the camp as intimately as I do. But I know he is in good hands.

Sowing and Reaping

Today as I was walking to work I was thinking about the law of sowing and reaping. The idea of this being a law was set forth by Cloud and Townsend in their excellent "Boundaries" books but the idea comes straight from the Bible itself:

"Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows."
- Galatians 6:7

The law of sowing and reaping is the law of cause and effect. Simple reality. You can’t avoid the consequences of your actions. If you overspend, you will most likely get into debt. If you eat right and exercise, you will have better physical health. Obvious, right? However, in human relationships, some people try to save others from this law by stepping in and reaping the consequences for someone else. For example, if every time you overspent, your parents stepped in and covered for you, they would be keeping you from experiencing natural consequences. And you’d never learn anything. You would do it over and over again.

Many of us struggle with this tendency to “step in” when it is not wise to do so. It is like a savior mentality where we feel like we want to save those we love from ever being hurt. Yet it is in getting hurt that we learn. Some of us have gone to great lengths to “fix” something for someone else, but by doing that, we not only drain ourselves, but take power away from those we care about – keeping them from experiencing the consequences and learning from them. This is called codependence.

Some of us have been in relationships where our partner attempted to do the same for us – to “rescue” us from the pain naturally occurring from the choices we made. Who are you protecting from the natural consequences of their actions? Your friend, your children, your spouse? How are you preventing their growth and independence? There is a place for grace and for mercy. But when people repeatedly do things that would usually result in negative consequences for them and we repeatedly rescue them from those consequences they learn nothing. You are actually doing them a world of harm. Stop it! Just stop it! Stop being codependent! Stop paying for their mistakes. Let them experience the consequences so that they can grow from them. I write this for every spouse with an addicted partner, every parent who keeps paying their kids way and rescuing them financially, every friend who is constantly rescuing their friends from themselves as a way of "caring." And I write it for myself.

Houses and Homes

I like houses. A lot actually. I like to look at them, visit them, buy them, and invest in them. The only thing I don't like about them is working on them!

The other day I was invited to the home of one of the couples who I am doing premarital counselling with. They invited me over for brunch and to show me the house they had just bought. Them buying this house was exciting, not just because of the investment value (something we definitely talked about) but because they used the policy of the joint agreement in a really cool way that was big deal in their relationship.

The area of Winnipeg they bought in a bit sketchier and the house they bought will need a lot of work. But as I stepped into the home and was met by their smiling, proud, and excited faces a profound thought hit me: " The value of a home is not how nice the building is and where it is located. A home derives it's value from the quality of the relationships of those who live inside." In other words the relationships are the home's greatest asset.

Sometimes I get house envy or pick apart all the things that are missing in mine or need to be done. The imperfections of the structure. But I remembered that day that the most important thing isn't those things at all - the question is, is the house a home? A place where people are loved, spend time with each other, and do life together? I think I want to focus more on these things.

Reconnecting

Last night Jobina and I talked.

I mean, really talked.

This might not seem amazing to you, but it seems like in the past few weeks we haven't really, well, connected much with each other. I mean we've been talking to each other, but not really talking about anything beyond the practicalities of the moment. Or maybe another way to say it would be to say that we've haven't really shared our real selves with each other. You know, the deep stuff. And I for one was missing it.

You see, after you have a baby (especially if you have other kids) it feels like if you are not careful you can kind of lose your spouse. I don't mean geographically lose them but emotionally. You're so busy with kids stuff that you can lose the heart of your spouse in your weariness and the general madness that becomes your life. Last night Jobina and I decided that in spite of sleep deprivation, laziness, and the looming slight awkwardness it was time. We sat and talked to each other and shared thoughts, feelings, fears, and questions. Suddenly I felt like we were not just parents but soulmates again. And it was good. Jobina initiated it - thanks babe. It reminded me again about how fragile our relationships are and how they need constant care. And how easy it is for a distance between two people to be solved. Thanks honey.

Your Past Is Not Your Destiny

Have you heard this story before?

Two men were interviewed on television. They were twin brothers. One was very successful in every area of life – he was a great family man, successful entrepreneur, avid sportsman, and generous philanthropist. The other was a convicted felon, a wife beater, and a drug addict. When the TV host interviewed this brother, who was homeless and bitter, he was asked why his life was such a disaster. He replied, “Well, what do your expect? My parents were alcoholics, my mother was a prostitute, my father ended up in jail. We were poor and regularly beaten as children. That’s what caused my present situation.”

Then they interviewed the successful brother. They asked him what he attributed his success to. He replied, “Well, what do your expect? My parents were alcoholics, my mother was a prostitute, my father ended up in jail. We were poor and regularly beaten as children. I decided to create a better life for myself and my family.” One brother used the past as an excuse for his bad choices, the other used the identical situation to motivate him to be successful.

Some people come from terrible backgrounds. I know it because I have heard enough stories in my office that would truly break your heart. Yet as bad some people's past is, it does not define one's destiny. Everyone must deal with their past at some point and certainly it does affect one's future. Certain challenges accompany a past filled with pain, abuse, betrayal, or heartbreaking mistakes. But it does not define where one ends up. By facing one's past, processing the hurts, and choosing to move forward in faith one can change one's stars. You can't change the past, but the future is up to you. . .

Speaking In A Foreign Land

Today I'm speaking at Maranantha Evangelical Free Church here in Winnipeg. I have never been to this church in my life and only yesterday found out where it is located. Why am I speaking there? Because I went to Bible College with the pastor and made the mistake of innocently sharing his Bible College nickname with someone from his board. OK, maybe it wasn't totally innocent. Needless to say I owed him one! Going into a church "cold," where you have no idea what they are like, how many of them there are, what their culture and personality is like, etc. is always exciting and scary at the same time. Dave (the pastor) refused to give me any information - undoubtedly to make it more difficult for me. Strangely I haven't felt any nervousness about speaking until this morning. So if you are checking your blogs in the morning and you are the praying type, please feel free to pray for me. The service starts at 11:00pm . . .

The Day After . . .

Well, it's the day after, how was your V-Day? Mine was pretty good. Our house is the den of sickness right now so we were happy to just have a brief reprieve from vomiting (that came back today) but Jobina and I spent some nice time just hanging out together. I have blogged in the past about the unique ways that we react to Valentine's Day, but hopefully you observed the day in one way or another. Maybe a date, a card, flowers, some kind words, or some time spent together. I will assume that if you are married that you probably did something.

Aside from the pressure, commercialization, and general madness that is Valentine's day, I really like the idea of either a special occasion or a reminder to woo that special someone. What is natural in the beginning of a relationship gets tougher as person moves out of the "in-love" stage that is the hallmark of all romantic relationships. This "in-love" experience has been studied and is a chemical/emotional high that accompanies all romantic beginnings. It is the true manifestation of eros love - a love that desires and is captivated by the beauty of another. Studies show that is accompanied by obsessive thinking. Because the person is always on your mind, romantic acts are as natural as breathing. It's a great stage, but it doesn't last forever - research pegs it lasting to a max of about 2 years (slightly more if the romance is a secret -as in an affair).

The thing about eros love (erotic love?) is that is is very centered on . . . oneself. "I love you . . . because of what I get from you." We never say this of course, and we may protest it, but it's true. I'm starting to realize that while this love is not necessarily inferior, it is certainly not it's highest form. It is merely a beginning . . . hot, passionate, and exciting, but only a beginning. Feeling in love is not the same as being loving.

Which brings me to my thought today: What would it be like if we pretended that everyday was Valentine's Day? What if we made a choice to love our spouses in extraordinary ways, every day? One of the Greek's words for love is agape, which is a sacrificial kind of love that is very different from eros. Instead of focusing on what we get out of the other person, it focuses on loving the other person. It says that love is patient, kind, not envying, not boasting, never proud. It is not rude, not self-seeking, not easily angered. Amazingly, this kind of love keeps no record of wrongs. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Pretty radical stuff.

In 1 Corinthians 13 (the passage I've been contemplating lately and where the above description comes from) it says that nothing matters if it isn't done with this kind of love. I am still trying to wrap my head around it but for me it is deeply humbling because I don't know if I have ever lived even remotely like this. My friend Andrew challenged me to speak on this passage at my youth speak in Teulon and now I'm finding this old, familiar passage is overwhelming me. All of this is simply to say that for Christ-followers, every day is Valentine's Day, a day to show our spouse that they are loved, not because of what they will do for us, but because this kind of love is the only way to live a life worthwhile. It doesn't mean that we can't still enjoy eros (after all, it is a wonderful gift from God), but lavishing agape love on our mate is the greatest thing we can do on this Earth, for God and for each other. I only wish I had realized it earlier.

Sold!

We found out the good news today: the financing condition has been met and so we have officially sold our rental property! The cool thing is that we were able to actually sell it at our asking price. Although possession isn't until mid-January, it's time to celebrate!

My journey til this point has been rich with memories and new learning experiences. First, I read Rich Dad, Poor Dad, which gave me a vision for buying real estate (and not blaming things like "I'm a student" from stopping me). Then there was a year and a half of looking at properties, learning how to evaluate them, and trying to convince my dubious wife that this was, in fact, a good idea for us. Still though I hadn't yet mastered my fear and actually bid on a house. I remember how I had started trying to convince my friends about what a good idea buying real estate was and how I planned to do it - and then one of my friends Keith actually went and bought a property - before me! I was so mad at myself I called my realtor and said "You have one month to find us something, I HAVE to get a property ASAP!" Keith's upstaging me helped me to do finally do the hardest part: take action. Soon we had our first property, and we decided to manage it ourselves. I bought two books on landlording and away we went! After many ups and downs (and some interesting experiences with renters), we decided that our property wasn't a great long term investment (it had some issues that would eventually need tending) and now we've sold it. Ah the memories! We feel very thankful. If you want some more of the details about our experience, check them out in these old posts from 2007.