Communication

In one of the post on this blog, I reflected on ‘listening in order to hear.’ The reason for that reflection was based on life’s lesson that is, God gave us two ears and one mouth. Two ears to listen more than we speak since we only have one mouth. In this post I want to reflect on another life’s lesson: communication. In communication we seek to share ourselves with others in a special way. In communicating with God – prayer, we enter into a dialogue with God. Unfortunately, for most of us, this communication is a one-way traffic. We spend all the time talking not caring to listen to God as He seeks to communicate Himself to us.

For the US department of education “The field of communication focuses on how people use messages to generate meanings within and across various contexts, cultures, channels and media. The field promotes the effective and ethical practice of human communication. Communication is a learned skill. Most people are born with the physical ability to talk but we must learn to speak well and communicate effectively. Speaking, listening and ability to understand verbal and nonverbal meanings are skill we develop in various ways.” This post is not dealing with the technicality of the discipline of communication. My interest is rather on the basic need to give myself to the other person and effectively expressing myself in a non- complicated way while the other person listens with a nonjudgmental attitude and intention. This much I know if love does not communicate that love is dead. In the same way, if we do not have an intentional habit of communicating with our loved ones, we could as well say goodbye to a relationship already established.

Life’s lesson: there is a story told of a couple who had some difficulties communicating. The man would come back from work, goes into the kitchen and fix his meals. The wife would do the same. One day the wife had an early doctor’s appointment. She needed the husband to wake her up an hour earlier so that she could get ready for her appointment. Since they were not in talking terms, she wrote a note requesting her husband to wake her up at 5:30 a.m. and left it on the husband’s nightstand. The man read the note and went to sleep. At 5:30 a.m. he wrote “wake up it is 5:30 and left it on the wife’s nightstand. Low and behold the wife woke up and 6:00 a.m. as the man was getting ready to go to work. She was furious the lashed out at the husband. I asked you to wake me at 5:30 was that too difficult a thing to do? The man responded, “why shout at me, I woke you up at the right time, check your nightstand.” This couple was engaged in a communication of a kind, but they did not use the proper skill and method for it.

Communication is more than mere words. It is paying attention to the other person and hearing even the things that are not said. It is observing the emotions and facial expressions of the other person. It is noticing the distractions that get in the way of proper communication. It is knowing when someone is paying attention to what is being said and when the person’s attention has been directed towards other things or people. At times we put masks and refuse to communicate truthfully to those we profess to love. This makes communication very difficult indeed. Telling people what we think they want to hear rather than telling them the truth is a disservice done to others rather than serving them in love. John Powell put it so well when he observed, “Our word communication refers to a process by which someone or something is made common, that is, it is shared. If you tell me a secret, then you and I posses the knowledge of your secret in common, and you have communicated it to me. But you have much more to communicate to me, if you wish to, than merely one of your secrets. You can tell me who you are, just as I can tell you who I am.” This is one of the tragedies of life; we are afraid to tell people, even our close friend, who we really are for fear that they may not love us. To communicate is to be in communion with someone and to be truly open to someone is to live. What then is life if I am always afraid of entering into a deeper union and communion with at least one person that I can truly call my friend?