Things I've Never Said

Communication is an interesting exercise in fultilty. We hear the mantra - communication is everything from success at business to marriage and family. What intrigues me the most is how must communication depends on the various filters that we all project onto life. We assume everyone operates with our particular mindset and perspectives - which then makes the other person guilt of not communicating well because they did not take my understanding into consideration. Think about the logic of that particular mindset. If you are talking to 10 people who all have their filters, then you are responsible to speak in such a way that will communicate the information according to their particular filters. Multiply that be a 100 and you begin to see the difficulty of this kind of thinking. Something I ran across a few months ago shed some light for me on this issue of communication. The basic thought was this - communication is not the key, understanding is. What does it take for understanding to flourish? It takes people who are willing to understand their own biases and enter into a conversation that respects diversity. Questions are critical in this conversation as well as a sense of humor and humility. So the next time you seek to communicate something to someone - think about what it means to help them understand you and for you to understand them.

Thinking Out Loud

I'm continually amazed at our conversations. The gulf oil crisis have taken up so much of our conversations. So many perspectives around the same set of circumstances. Who is right? Who is wrong? It appears that in our linear thinking we reduce everything down to a black and white reality that of course agrees with us. The fragile nature of clarity in life has caused a humility to emerge in me that seeks to see with eyes that are not my own. Seeing our world through our brothers and sisters in Zimbabwe profoundly changes what we see from our vantage point. Listening with the ears of our brothers and sisters in India profoundly changes what we hear from our particular audience. This is why community is so important and that we keep an honest and open conversation going. It is here that the conversation shifts from "what is wrong with our world" to "where is God working and how do we engage His mission in our lives."