Communication Sermon 12008

Communication September 28, 2008 Andrea Abbott

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One summer, I witnessed two events which made me start thinking about communication. The first was the earnest, ongoing attempt of our cocker spaniel, Bear, to communicate with the kitten down the street, Mookie. The attempt was mutual, with Mookie also interested in establishing contact. The second was a conversation about abortion between my sister-in-law and a friend of mine. In both cases, I found that communication attempts, at least to those witnessing these events, can be a hair raising experience for the spectators. In the case of Bear and Mookie, it was also literally hair raising. As anyone who has a cat or dog knows, the interaction between your pet and someone else’s pet is fraught with tension. We take Bear to the dog park, and this experience is rather like taking your kid to the playground. Not everyone is patient with the process of learning to get along. I remember hauling my kids out of sandboxes when they had biffed another kid or had been biffed in their turn by someone else. It’s a lot like that at the dog park. People are embarrassment their dog’s behavior or outraged at the other dog owner’s pet, while, of course, the dogs, like the kids, usually end up getting along just fine. The adults or owners just don’t read the signals the right way. Kids and dogs have their own forms of communication.

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So, when Bear decided to get to know the cat down the street better, us clueless humans didn’t initially see this as a groundbreaking interspecies diversity training session. We thought Bear was trying to attack, possibly to chew, Mookie. One clue, had we been less anxious about this interaction, might have been that Mookie didn’t run away from Bear. Evening after evening they engaged in a sort of dance in which Bear would start by running after Mookie, then sit down and Mookie would creep close to Bear, tail lashing like mad, while Bear would wag what tail she’s got as hard as she could. Both of them would stare at each other and then, with some coaxing, Bear would continue on her walk with Mookie stalking us from a safe distance. Of course, as you know, the potential for misunderstanding was high. Cats lash about with their tails when they are upset , while dogs wag theirs to indicate pleasure. Was Bear interpreting Mookie’s tail waving as acceptance? Was Mookie seeing Bear’s advance as an invitation to play Pounce the Dog, a famous feline game? Were both of them, in short, interpreting what could have been negative signals in a positive light? They must have been because the interaction continued, with no loss of temper or fur.

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While this exercise in cross-specie detente was going on, we had visitors, my husband’s sister and brother-in-law and a college friend of mine. My sister-in-law is Catholic, very devoted to her church, and my friend is a lifelong feminist. Both are women of decided opinion who take pride in their frankness. Therefore, when the topic of abortion came up, (I can’t remember how, believe me, I would not have raised it), I held my breath and waited for the explosion. What happened instead was that both talked about the issue without listening to the other person and somehow assumed that the other agreed with her. I breathed again, glad that an unpleasant social moment was over, even if only by default and misunderstanding. This could be seen in two ways. The first is that both people were more determined to be polite, as guests, or more interested in continuing a pleasant social interaction than they were in changing hearts and minds, or it could be that clear communication is not always as desirable as we think it is. Both these incidents have left me mulling over the whole issue of communications, which can sometimes appear as difficult between people as it is between two different species, maybe more so. All life seems to, in some way, try to communicate, down to plants which are said to emit signals when they are in distress. To be understood is a deeply held desire. When we are, or feel we are misunderstood, we feel wretched, angry, alone. We

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can feel misunderstood as individuals, or as members of a group with whom we identify. And how much more is accomplished when we feel we understand a person or a group of people in a more complete way than we did before. In many ways, the great changes in social justice have come about because some group previously caricatured, made themselves understood. This has been true of different races, different ethnic groups, true of different religious communities, economic and social classes, gay, lesbian and transgendered people, and those with disabilities, to name a few groups. The list is longer than this and we can all provide examples. We feel most acutely for those categories to which we or those we love belong, because we understand the gap between the way we or they are portrayed and the complexity of our lives or the lives of those they love. It has, I’m sure, happened to everyone here, that they have been dismissed because they are too young, too old, too tall, too short. Dismissed by occupation or education, (either too little and you’re considered dull or too much and you’re an out-of-touch egghead). We all know the feeling when this happens, the desire to explain ourselves, to make the other person understand how they have wronged us, to communicate the fullness of ourselves.

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The first way to bring about, or sustain, injustice against a person or a group is to refuse to understand their full humanity. That’s why stereotyping can be so dangerous. And clearly, without meeting and understanding, without the opportunity to communicate, there is no chance to break this cycle. When we do meet, there is still the danger that we do not understand each other’s language. Like Mookie and Bear, when we wag our tails are we angry or pleased? Do we mean the same things even when we say the same words? Do we mean the same things when we say honor, family, or sacred just for some examples. Though we generally want to communicate with others, though we generally want to be on the talking end, we often find that the first step in any communication begins with listening. As a card-carrying talker, however, I would like to stick up for talkers, for just a minute. My husband is a therapist, as most of you know, a paid, empathic listener, and let me tell you a whole group of these folks can be a real challenge at a social event. If they weren’t with non-listener partners, the party would not go with a swing. Someone has to talk. Everyone cannot be actively listening. But I have to give those professional listeners credit. Listening is tough. Years ago, through a series of events not under my control, I taught a communications class for a semester. One of the first exercises we used was to divide in pairs

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and have the students take turns talking, but, the person who was listening would have to begin their part of the conversation by repeating everything the talker had said before he or she could add their contribution. It was difficult. People found out how little they listened, how much they had been preparing what they wanted to say on the subject instead of hearing what their partner had to say. Try this at home folks. I know I’m appalled by how much I do this, and I can’t be the only one. There are many reasons why we block what others are saying—we feel our own needs are left out, we feel guilty and don’t want to hear the reproaches of others, we are busy about our own concerns, we want to demonstrate our own cleverness, we feel burdened or frightened by the pains and grief of others, particularly when we feel we cannot do anything to help. How many of us have felt apprehensive about going to a funeral? I know I have. How many times have we said “I never know what to say.” But for every time we have felt inadequate, these same difficulties reveal our strength. In some ways these most human of fears and desires are drawn from the same well that makes us the unique and remarkable creatures we are on this planet. We have the capacity for consciousness. We have both the desire and the ability to learn, to discover and to communicate those discoveries to others. We are part of the same species that includes great

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poets, dramatists, philosophers and we share in their nature. Our inarticulateness in the face of others sorrow is a symptom of our great impulse to help, to soothe, to heal. We want to do something, to say something to make it all better. That desire can blind us to the fact that, in the absence of supernatural ability, our very presence is doing as much as possible, that our desire to help is the help we give. This is us at our best. At our worst, we can become the tools of those communicators who thrive on controversy, who will provide us with division and drama. Have you heard there’s an election campaign going on? Many can use speech to whip up our fears, our insecurities or our pride. This happens all too often in families, between friends, and, writ large, it certainly happens nationally and internationally. Take a map of the world, put on a blindfold and stick a pin in it anywhere. Chances are you will hit an area in which someone is fomenting hatred between one group or another, an area in which the sounds of mortars and bullets, the shouts and screams, are way too loud for anyone to hear anyone else. Oratory is used to inspire, but not always for good. Words have made many powerful and prosperous, but only through the blood of innocents. Many despair of ever reaching solutions to the problems of human hate. Solve one problem and another one crops up. Today’s victims become

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tomorrow’s despots. How do we stop the cycle? How do we learn to truly listen, not defensively, to the hurts and sorrows of others? And, when we are the speaker, how do we learn to speak those hurts and sorrows so others can hear, not run away? Most people are people of good will. I am convinced of this, though it may seem naive. I have met many people who have opinions that I find deplorable, or who live lives that I find selfish, or trivial, but I have met very few people who really want to cause evil. Most of the time, I meet people caught up in their own dramas, or people who feel they are helpless spectators. They just want the fight to be over. I felt that way that summer, faced with a potentially nasty disagreement between two people dear to me. I didn’t want “my side” to win. In Rodney King’s words, I just wanted everybody to get along. I’m not much of a happy warrior. But this can be frightening. Have we really become so divided that there is no place for civilized debate? Does this mean we always have to agree with each other in order to talk to each other? Does this mean there is no way to have compromise? How can we maintain friendships or family ties with those who disagree with each other? How can we maintain a church? We need a new language because words, too, can wear grooves in the mind. Language becomes old, becomes blunted. We can be read bed-time

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stories, old familiar words that lull us to sleep, or we can hear a new story which illuminates the world before us. We have need for yet again a new language. Perhaps a new prophet will come forth. Or perhaps this is the time that we recognize a different way. At the time of the Reformation, Calvin called for a priesthood of all believers. Unitarian-Universalists called for a prophethood of all believers. What might this be? Could it be a prophethood of eloquent silence? Could it be a witness of listening? Could this depend on us, every one of us, not on one superhuman person? Could we try to find the places at which we meet? Could we rise to the place where all can speak freely, safely? What will be the language we need to speak in our closer, more dangerous world? What motivation will guide us to a common tongue of justice and mercy?