Tag: communication

Begging to Differ

On By Charis PsalloIn Black and white, Just folks4 Comments

Photo: Even Calvin and Hobbes don’t always see eye to eye

What? Somebody on the internet is wrong? Well, cancel my appointments and hold my calls! I’ll straighten him out! He is probably a _____ist and you know what _____ism can lead to!

Wait. I’m trying to change.

I don’t want to go back to the days when I was told by a rather stifling range of fearful clergy and “Totalled and less-than-Fascinating Women” my husband’s opinion was my opinion (a situation which left one of us not only depressed, but redundant). When, after decade or two, my feistiness finally burst forth more than one innocent bystander was left wondering what the heck that was all about.

But…

On the one hand, my opinion –and I do have one- (As Ellen DeGeneres wrote) needs expression, even if it is subject to change.

On the other hand, the problem with winning a game of intellectual king of the hill is that the winner takes his or her prize alone.

I’m not a career academic as many of my nearest and dearest are. Debate was considered to be disrespectful and was verboten in my family of origin (even the verbs were passive). Perhaps it started when the priest grabbed my momma by the nose and dragged out of her seat to the chair of shame in front of the other catechism students. She questioned something he said. Momma had a substantial Cleopatra-style nose which she hated, and after that day hated even more. She never stuck it in church business again and instilled the same rule against questioning clergy in us, but in the business of people she considered under her command? Well, her opinions lived large. Papa just wanted a conflict-free zone.

Imagine my shock when I married into a family whose favourite form of entertainment was recreational argument. Now I understand the academic inclination to hypothesize, criticize, revise and go at ‘er again, but at the time it seemed to me that verbal volleyball in the dining room took out a lot of light fixtures and left the participants with creamed ideas splotching their shirts and clots of mashed opinions resting in their hair. The crazy part came when the discussion began to reach resolution. They would switch sides and keep going. Politics, sex, religion, health, science, the cost of tea in China –even the weather, served as shuttlecocks. If you said, “Nice day,” someone would bat back, “Not really,” and wait for your return.

Few people enjoy arguing like that because few people can detach themselves from their ideas (including these guys). An attack on an idea can feel like an attack on identity. Have you noticed the average number of posts it takes for an internet conversation to descend from “I disagree” to “You’re a _____”? On some news sites it’s about one.

I’m fascinated by the Moravians of Herrnhut. They kept a continuous corporate prayer vigil going 24/7  for a hundred years. Before the dramatic experience of the Holy Spirit showing up in their midst with all the same weird and unexpected special effects that shook the early church in Jerusalem, the Moravians taking refuge on Count Zinzendorf’s property were as schism-ridden as churches tend to be now. The motto they adopted after the Holy Spirit event was, “In essentials, unity; in nonessentials, liberty; and in all things, love.” They lived it, went on to accomplish amazing things for the kingdom of God –and conveyed the good news of  hope and new life to many.

The Bible says:

Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another. Proverbs 27:17

By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another. John 13:35

We need both –sharpening and refining, but above all to be motivated by love.

If we want to learn we need to hear and discuss opinions other than our own.

If we want unity we must relinquish the need to always be right about everything.

If we want to love and build each other up we need to agree on essentials and respectfully disagree when we perceive dangerous ideas sneaking in. Love does not always look away, but we need to leave room for people in process, including ourselves. It’s called grace.

In my humble opinion.

Use your words

On By Charis PsalloIn Just folksLeave a comment

I heard a newborn baby crying in church. You know, it was a sweet sound. The mom had a difficult delivery and it was such a blessing to see both of them happy and healthy.

Some of the kids turned around to see what was wrong — or to see how long the baby was going to get away with this. I felt like explaining to them that crying is the only language babies have and it doesn’t always mean they are in pain, or even that something is wrong.

Then the Lord spoke to me in my spirit and said, “Sometimes people cry and whine because it’s the only language they have.”

This came up in the context of praying about how to respond to people I care about, but who cry and whine a lot. (OK, I’m one too). Sometimes I feel like a mom in the kitchen at 5 o’clock with a whimpering baby demanding to be picked up and a whiny toddler demanding immediate satisfaction and an older child groaning about being asked to set the table. I get frustrated and I am so tempted to snap at them using a less than kind tone myself.

If a child is never spoken to she will never learn to use words. If a child is only criticized he will never learn to speak positively. Children learn by hearing, or by watching in the case of sign language, and then by being given opportunities and encouragement to practise their new skills.

Sometimes, like my three toddler grandchildren, we need to be reminded to use the skills we are gaining. Frustration and whining decreased when they learned the signs for milk, please and thank you. Now they are starting to talk, and the oldest one is being actively taught to use kind words by her parents who have instituted a time of blessing every day. Even the 18 month old is learning to say, “Nice, smart, kind, strong.”

I wonder if some people cry and protest a lot because it is the only language they know. I wonder if we need to teach people how to gain new ways of expressing themselves. I wonder if we need to speak more kind words to them.

I wonder if my prayers would be more effective if my first response to Abba’s requests was not a groan. (Although admittedly there are sometimes in prayer when there are no words, and only a primal moan will do.)

I wonder if we need to be very understanding of those who only have the language of crying.

I wonder if we also need to seek the Lord for discernment and wisdom as they grow to recognize the time to start withholding gratification and to say, in as kind and patient a voice as we can manage, “Use your words.”

I wonder if God sometimes withholds gratification until we learn to communicate respectfully with an attitude of trust and appreciation –to help us mature. I hear him say, “Use your words, honey.”

Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. Phil 4:6

When facts get in the way of truth

On By Charis PsalloIn Mountains, Trees and forests5 Comments

Fisher Peak from Environmental office ch rs

I love the valley we live in. Snow, clouds, and sun continually change the texture and colour of the mountains. I drove my old Saskatchewan farmer uncle up to a viewpoint expecting him to admire the vista as much as I do.

“It’s okay,” he grunted, ” but those mountains kinda block the view.”

To him beauty was a thin band of waving wheat domed by an enormous sky. I suppose mountains could look like giant rocks that would impede the progress of a plow. His eyes feasted on open space.

My eyes feast on rivers, lakes, trees and mountains.  I particularly like being surprised by the mountains. The other day they suddenly emerged after hiding in a moody dark cloak of cloud all week. A fresh fall of snow glowed in the morning sun. The beauty kind of took my breath away and I pointed them out to another person in the parking lot.

“Too bad the telephone wires ruin the view,” he said.

I was so enthralled with the light I hadn’t noticed the poles and wires. Nothing was “ruined” for me. If I was taking a photo I probably would have moved to change my perspective -maybe to a spot right under the wires. At that moment I was not focusing on telephone poles. I could still see beauty.

Facts can be like annoying telephone wires that keep us from seeing a bigger truth. Have you ever been in the middle of sharing a really good anecdote to illustrate your point when someone interrupts with facts?

“No. It was a Thursday and she was the niece of the Schufflemeier boy with the plate in his head, not his cousin.”

Clouds sailing to Alberta on the high westerly winds sometimes look like they snag on the Rockies on the way to the waving wheat fields. They can stay there for hours. I think some people’s minds snag on facts like the clouds snag on the craggy peaks and they miss the beauty of both the mountains and the prairies.

My stories are not always accurate for detail -although I am trying to be more respectful of  those who need documentation. Fiction can speak truth more plainly than court evidence. And honestly? A lot of my photos are photoshopped because I am trying to communicate the truth I see. I take out the telephone wires -unless it’s a comment on the shape of sunlit frosted wire garlands, which can be kind of cool. So you can correct me if you were there and remember it differently, but I’ll probably ignore you like I ignore the telephone wires.

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