Last
week I began to write about love. I compared the concept of a loving
relationship to a three-legged stool. A metaphor that I often use in wedding
homilies. I wrote about love as being at least three dimensional of physical,
emotional, and spiritual. Love is a choice and as reminded by Pastor Craig a
verb of doing. It is an action that we choose based on our values, beliefs, and
actions. Love can be at times radical in what choices that we make such as, “I
tell you love your enemies” as Jesus tells us in the Sermon on the Mount. So if
love is the seat of this stool, what are the legs that support those volitions?
Today I
want to talk about one of the legs, that is communication. To be able to make
the best choice regarding love requires one be able to communicate with others.
The first communication, I believe, is to our creator. To find the moral
compass that guides us, there is no better source of knowing what love is and
what love looks like than to turn to God and Jesus. Jesus is love and
constantly telling us to love one another as he loved us. This is the purest
form of love, agape love. When we tune into the source of love and to be in
communication with that source, we are able to take the love that is given to
us and to share that with others. We become the conduit of love. Listening requires
us to take time to be in prayer and to be silent, allowing God to communicate
with us.
Communication
is the process of both talking and listening, really listening. This is true
with prayer as well as with others. Stephen Covey, in his book 7 Habits of
Highly Effective People, lists one of the habits as first understand the other
and then be understood. Listening is more than just hearing the words but
making the effort to understand what lies beyond the words. In talking to God,
listening to what God wants rather than just a form of exercise that one does
out of obligation. When talking with another person, it is easy to stop
listening as one prepares their response. This is an example of
miscommunication. For one has stopped listening and is ready to respond based
on their own expectations and beliefs. When I was working as a therapist in a
mental health center, part of my job was to be an instructor for those who were
pursuing counseling. The students would shadow me during interviews and when I judged
that they were ready to do an interview on their own, allow them to do so. I remember
one student who was assigned a client to do an initial interview. They left the
interview after 10 minutes knowing what was going on. I suggested that they
return and for the next 30 minutes really listen to what the client was
presenting. They found out that in their rush to have the answers, they missed
out on important information that would be helpful in the healing process. I have
seen in others and myself times when I would shortcut the listening process and
jumped to trying to fix whatever the issue is. Going back to what Covey stated,
it is better to understand the other then being understood. There is room for
both.
Another
aspect of communicating with others is to focus on issues not personalities. Too
often, especially today, the focus is on the person not the issue. It helps to
remember that we are all children of God. Having a difference of opinion is
just that a difference of opinion. It does not mean one is wrong if they
disagree with you or you with them. Diversity of thought and beliefs is what
makes us stronger. This does not mean one has to always compromise. One can
agree to disagree and that is okay. It is when one assumes that there is some
flaw in the other person for holding a different belief that can break down
communication. Once again, we come back to first understand before being
understood. Take time to hear the other person and hear not just the words but
what are the values, beliefs, and feelings that underlie what they have to say.
Doing so gives more of an opportunity for the other to take time to listen to
you. This is true even if the other is criticizing you. Hear why they are
critical of you and then evaluate is there any truth in what they say. I am not
saying that the other will reciprocate hearing you, but one can try. Otherwise,
you will know that communicating with the other is not possible, at least on
this issue, and you can choose to move on.
There is
so much more about communication that can be discussed. The last one aspect
that I want to discuss is self-communication. It is important to communicate
with God and with others especially those that are close to you. It is also important
to look at how you communicate with yourself. Many often talk to themselves in
self-depreciating ways. They belittle themselves saying I’m never good enough, I’m
stupid, I don’t deserve to be loved, I’m ugly, etc. When we suffer from low
self-esteem, it is difficult to be able to communicate with others and with
God. We are created by God as we are and God loves us no matter what we believe
about ourselves. Yet, it is often difficult to shut up that self-critic that
keeps a running monolog in our heads. Letting go of the critic can be one of
the most difficult and potentially rewarding experiences that we can have. We are
human and we have our human failings but even if we fall short, we are loved by
God our creator. We don’t have to define ourselves by our failings but can
learn from them. Scripture has so many stories of people; Joseph, Moses,
Gideon, David, Peter, Paul and others who began to define themselves by their
failings even if forgetting that we are human subject to our failings. But in
every case, they were redeemed by God. So are we.
Till next week
Eldon
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