Listening to each other
Perhaps I am oversensitive since I live in a country where our
politicians and a goodly proportions of our population spend more
time complaining about the delivery of the message than they ever
spend listening to it. Nothing is being communicated because we are
all looking for faults in the way the other guy said it.
Seems to me that here in the USA we need to make the effort to hear
what the other is saying rather than fuss about its delivery system.
For myself, struggling to internalize St. Benedict's teaching on
humility, I know this means I have to learn to listen much better than
I do, especially when I don't care for the tone, the vocabulary etc.
It's like I have to get over my fine self and be attentive to the
other person. To concentrate on the how, rather than the content strikes
me as an essentially selfish, self-centered act. Surely as Christians,
we are here to serve, not to be served. I wish I could say this came easily or naturally to me. But it does not. Please pray for me in this struggle to learn to hear.
Certainly, there is the language of violence, of abuse, and I don't like it either. I have refused to engage in conversation with people I felt were deliberately using political incorrect language. Is that appropriate? Is that teaching by example?
And then are those genuinely struggling to make their voices heard, to express their needs or their opinions who employ broad sweeping generalizations. Is it right to criticize them for that instead of discerning what they want to say? I think rather than dismiss them for their communication style, perhaps humility requires us to ask them questions. " Did you mean?" "Have I heard you correctly?"
Oh dear, yes. This might make it a lengthy conversation. It might require us to stop the 12 other things we are doing and focus on that one person. I am thinking that here in the USA where polarization and polemics appear to rule the day, the only way past it is to concentrate on the content, not the medium.
Or, let's stop shooting the messenger.
politicians and a goodly proportions of our population spend more
time complaining about the delivery of the message than they ever
spend listening to it. Nothing is being communicated because we are
all looking for faults in the way the other guy said it.
Seems to me that here in the USA we need to make the effort to hear
what the other is saying rather than fuss about its delivery system.
For myself, struggling to internalize St. Benedict's teaching on
humility, I know this means I have to learn to listen much better than
I do, especially when I don't care for the tone, the vocabulary etc.
It's like I have to get over my fine self and be attentive to the
other person. To concentrate on the how, rather than the content strikes
me as an essentially selfish, self-centered act. Surely as Christians,
we are here to serve, not to be served. I wish I could say this came easily or naturally to me. But it does not. Please pray for me in this struggle to learn to hear.
Certainly, there is the language of violence, of abuse, and I don't like it either. I have refused to engage in conversation with people I felt were deliberately using political incorrect language. Is that appropriate? Is that teaching by example?
And then are those genuinely struggling to make their voices heard, to express their needs or their opinions who employ broad sweeping generalizations. Is it right to criticize them for that instead of discerning what they want to say? I think rather than dismiss them for their communication style, perhaps humility requires us to ask them questions. " Did you mean?" "Have I heard you correctly?"
Oh dear, yes. This might make it a lengthy conversation. It might
Or, let's stop shooting the messenger.
posted by Gloriamarie Amalfitano @ 9:19 AM
3 Comments:
At 7:05 AM,
Anonymous said…
I spend a lot of time teaching my children that if they want to be heard, they need to adapt their messages so that the person to whom they're sending them can receive AND accept and understand them (tone has a lot to do with that). We not only need to learn to listen to what others say, regardless of the poor tone, grammar, or language choices, we also need to learn to SEND our messages in formats that our listeners can accept and understand. Many people seem to be wholly unaware that the way they send their messages keeps people from hearing them.
Communication is a two way street -- BOTH sides must work to make it effetive. And that means that the sender needs to remember that the listener has filters of his or her own that may block the message -- just as the listener must remember that the sender's filters may not match his ... and so must try to get around his own filters.
Anyway,
I really wanted to say hello, and tell you about an enduring message of welcome you sent 9 years ago: You knit a bell shawl for my then infant daughter. She still carries it around (though it's now a bit tattered), and refuses to let it be replaced. I has, of course, been washed many times in the interim.
At 2:02 PM,
Ritagail said…
Hi Gloriamarie,
I just saw your post on a Benedictine Oblate list and was curious about your blog "knitternun"....and wanted to say "Hi!"
Hugz,
Ritagail
At 11:17 AM,
Anonymous said…
Sr. Gloriamarie:
I am glad I found this site about you. It helps me. I met you just a week or so ago through the Magdalanlist.
Now about GC06. Last Sunday at church I heard not one word about GC06 except pleasure about our PB-elect. In fact everywhere I have gone in Episcopal circles no one is talking about GC06. What are they talking about? Ministry. Gl;oriamarie ministry is being done. The hungry are being fed. The sick are beig csalled on. Yes, I know about your tragic experience but it is not always like that. If my wife Jean were alive she waould be wearing her Daughters cross and people would be asking, "What is that" and she would tell them about a group of woman who gather not to raise money but to pray and study and be of service. Ministry is happening and that is more important than GC06.
peace....
allan aka acp+
aparker@720seneca.com
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