The elephant reference....

Old 06-23-2002, 04:48 AM
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Post The elephant reference....

I have read about the duck reference to our A's but I was never really sure where the elephant reference came from so I was doing a little searching and came across these

The Elephant

There’s a situation you try to ignore,
though you live with it every day.
There’s an elephant in your living living room,
but nobody looks his way.
There’s a feeling of dread throughout the home,
a fear you are never without.
There’s an elephant in the living room
that nobody talks about.

Sometimes it seems you could almost relax,
but you know that you wouldn’t dare.
No matter how rosy the picture looks,
the elephant is always there.
The air is heavyfrom last nights fight
and silence is all that is heard.
There’s an elephant in the living room
and nobody says a word.

If you recognize that the elephant’s there,
then something had to be done.
Since you are the one that brought it up,
then you are the chosen one.
You have to take the bull by the horns
and figure out what to do.
But the elephant in the living room
won’t let you carry it through.

Everyone makes excuses for,
and all of your hands are bound,
by the elephant in the living room
that everyone steps around.
You tell yourself this is normal stuff,
that all of the friends you know,
have an elephant in their living rooms,
but you know that it isn’t so.

The acts play out like a Shakespeare piece
where everyone plays the clown.
If you ever want to be san again,
you must face the elephant down.
You must look long and you must look close
to see what it’s all about.
‘Cause you have to acknowledge the elephant’s there before you can lead it out.

Author Unknown

THE ELEPHANT IN THE LIVING ROOM
A young boy came home from school one day to find an enormous Elephant standing in the living room, and if that wasn't bad enough, everyone in the family was ignoring it and pretending that it wasn't there.

There sat his father reading his paper as usual, his mother was fussing around in the kitchen, other members of the family came and went, but no one mentioned the Elephant. Now, not only was the Elephant not mentioned by the family members, it wasn't' discussed outside the home either.. ' You would think that good friends would have mentioned the Elephant; for surely some of them were aware of its presence; but because the family never spoke of it, the friends never brought it up.

Sometimes when mutual friends met, they would gossip a bit about the beast; but felt quite powerless to intervene.

There was one very concerned friend; who felt that it was somehow his responsibility to bring the matter into the open, for after all, it isn't easy to carry on a meaningful conversation when there's an Elephant' between you. Every time he cleared his throat to make a determined effort to broach the matter, one of the family would change the subject, suggest that he have another drink, or ask him if he would like to stay for supper. The time never seemed quite right to talk about the Elephant.

The neighbors suspected something amiss in the home, for, as you can well imagine, an Elephant isn't the easiest thing to keep to yourself, but no matter how many hints they dropped, the pretense still went on and soon they too learned to go along with it.

Once a man with a large suitcase came around the doors selling a variety of products to help the harried housewife. Among the patent medicines the lady of the house saw a bottle of large pills guaranteed to eliminate Elephants and other large objects from before her eyes. At last she had the solution! But although she took the pills faithfully after every meal, they succeeded in only making her very drowsy. While the Elephant did disappear every time: she let her heavy eyelids close, there he was as large as life when the drowsiness wore off and she opened her eyes again.

Her husband, without saying much about it, tried 'using a type of vanishing cream he got in a plain brown wrapper from a mail-order house. He'd seen the advertisement in a man's magazine which guaranteed remarkable results but deep down he knew that he was kidding himself, so he went back to the old game of pretending that the Elephant wasn't there

.
It was around this time that the wife decided to see their family doctor. She wasn't feeling up to par, she told him, she wasn't sleeping as well as she used to and was frequently depressed . She told him about her headaches, her backaches, and her stomach aches, for these are the respectable ailments, but she didn't tell him about the Elephant. She was too ashamed to, and after a11, what could a doctor do about the Elephant? The medication he prescribed helped her quite a bit, she thought, but it didn't have any effect on the Elephant.

One day, things got so bad that the couple decided to see their minister to talk over a few problems. After a while their minister said, "It sounds like you have an Elephant in your home". Well, that was a bit of a shocker! But what a relief to be able to talk to someone about it. After they spent some time talking openly about their Elephant, the minister suggested that they join a group that met regularly at the church. Everyone in the group, he told them, had one thing in common : each one had an Elephant in their living room.

Well , it almost floored them to realize that there were so many Elephants in the community, especially up here on the North Hill. They thought they were mostly down on River. Street or in the East End. They weren't too sure: that they wanted to get involved in a group like that-- but their minister seeing their hesitation said, "How would you like to have a couple from the group call on you and go with you to the first meeting?"

Their first surprise came when they answered the doorbell on the night of the meeting. There on the doorstep was a teacher from one of the high schools, his wife, and a nurse from the hospital. The couple saw these people in church every Sunday, and who would have thought that they had any problems at all?-- but the nurse assured them that they too had an Elephant. The next surprise was at the group where they were greeted warmly by the members. Some of their best friends were in the group, and they greeted them with a hug and said, "We .wondered how long it Would take you to realize your need of this fellowship. We know what you are going through, and here at the group you will get the spiritual resources, the love, the acceptance and the support to enable you to cope with your problem, the Elephant."

lt. was a wonderful evening for our couple. What a relief to know that they weren't the only ones with an Elephant in their living room-- that all those people had one too, and better still, had been able to do something about it.

Perhaps, at your house, the dumb thing sits there it's called ALCOHOLISM, and it's the biggest thing in the house. Other people can entertain , other children can have friends sleep over, but your house is full of Elephants!

You may flail at it, cry over it, push the tail, pull the trunk end or try to coax it into joining the circus but there the dumb thing sits.

Now isn't that silly? You can't move an elephant. You can move out-- or-- you can go on with your life the best way possible, considering the irrefutable fact that there is an Elephant in your living room. You can learn to live with it... roller skate around it...· dust it off... crochet a nose-cozy for it... paint it pue and purple lease space on it to the local candidate of your choice... BUT STOP TRYING TO MOVE IT !!!

...AND SMILE. GOD LOVES YOU, and He gave you the whole world to be happy in-- not just the little space around the you-know-what in your you-know-where! - Anonymous
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Old 06-23-2002, 04:54 AM
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Ann
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Barbiedeb

Thank you so much for these. Now when newcomers ask about "the elephant in our livingroom' we can direct them here!!! <img border="0" title="" alt="[Eek!]" src="eek.gif" />
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Old 06-23-2002, 07:13 AM
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This was great Barbiedeb,

Thanks,

MG
 
Old 06-23-2002, 07:37 AM
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That is great!!!
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Old 04-06-2003, 07:04 AM
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Now would probably be a good time to bump the elephant reference to the top
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Old 04-06-2003, 08:18 AM
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Ann
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Oh My - I had almost forgotten this one. Thank you for putting it back up where everyone can enjoy it. And what a great reminder for ME.
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Old 04-06-2003, 12:25 PM
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Thanks Barbiedeb, Wow! That was great! There's definitely an elephant in my livingroom! I'm still struggling with how, and when to tell my seven year old daughter about her father's addiction. She definitely senses something, poor thing, I really need to pray about how to explain everything to her without completely terrorizing her. Any suggestions from anyone here would be welcome. Also, please someone fill me in on the duck reference, I'm not familiar with it. Thanks. God Bless You, Faithful.

Last edited by Faithful; 04-06-2003 at 12:32 PM.
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Old 04-06-2003, 01:02 PM
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Faithful

I brought it back up if you care to take a read. It is the "Duck-Anon" thread. Enjoy LOL
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Old 09-08-2003, 05:43 PM
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Haven't heard anyone talking about the "elephant" lately. Perhaps we just call them what they are these days
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