Page 62 - EMCAPP-Journal No. 21
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• Congruence – comparing spoken words to most valuable. Firstly, slowing down to
body language and tone connect. This image is taken from space travel.
• Context – be�er understanding of the The shu�le has to slow down to connect and
se�ng. ‘dock’ with the space lab. We tend to live in a
• Clusters – using not one but mul�ple ex- ‘hurry sick’ society where pa�ence is at a pre-
pressions or movements to influence our in- mium. To really understand what another per-
terpreta�on of a person’s body language. son is trying to communicate, we have to ‘listen
(25) more slowly’. It takes �me ‘to enter the long
black branches of other people’s lives’, as Mary
I sense I am adding to the complexity of inter- Oliver puts it. (28)
personal communica�on, rather than simplify- We have to prac�ce ‘a�en�ve listening’. We
ing it. One could be feeling quite nega�ve and have to give folks space and �me to tell us ex-
pessimis�c about the whole enterprise. But the actly what they want to say. The most import-
reality is closer to intui�ve common sense ant issues are not usually blurted out in the first
when we get down to it. The fact is that some few words. We also need to prac�ce ‘Selah’
folks are easier to communicate with than moments. Selah is used by the editor/compiler-
others. And there is a plas�city about our s(s) of the Psalms to instruct the congrega�on
brains to be be�er communicators. No one is to pause at that point in the Psalm to take in
en�rely unknowable.(26) There are those who the significance of what is being sung. Some�-
express themselves in ways that allow others to mes silence is more important than words – lis-
perceive them more accurately. Halvorson re- tening to what is not being said – perceiving the
fers to this as “judgeable” or as personality ex- emo�onal atmosphere that is present. “I have
pert David Funder calls it, being a “good target”. o�en regre�ed my speech, but never my si-
Personally, I’m not a fan of either term, but I get lence”, as an ancient writer has it. (29) Thomas
their point. Merton undergirds this need of quietness as
To be more ‘readable’ or as Halvorson and Fun- part of the art of communica�on when he wri-
der put it “judgeable”, four things need to hap- tes, “It is in deep…silence that I find the
pen. The target must: gentleness with which I can truly love my bro-
ther and sister”. Norris expands on this, spea-
1. Make the informa�on available king of “an unfathomable silence that has the
2. Make sure that the informa�on is relevant. power to reform...” (30) So love and gentleness
are both the mo�va�on and approach to true
Then the perceiver must: communica�on. In all circumstances we must
not have ‘weaponized words’.
3. Detect, or pay a�en�on to that informa�on and
4. Use it correctly. Marriage as Martyrdom
Halvorson makes an important caveat here The last sec�on of Werner’s paper on commu-
that, if we hide informa�on about ourselves, nica�on focuses on marriage. A recent blog by
the danger is that, people will fill in the blanks, Abilene Marshall immediately caught my a�en-
imagining a whole personality profile for you �on in this regard. The author picks up a phrase
that may or may not be accurate. More sinister from Orthodox Chris�anity, ‘Marriage as Mar-
s�ll, manipula�ve people can use this dynamic tyrdom’. It literally means giving myself fully to
to their own advantage. (27) my spouse. Wendell Berry even speaks of it
being a kind ‘dying’. One can apply this to the
Learning the Art art and prac�ce of communica�on within mar-
riage. Ringma writes that, “true life has God at
There is a veritable mountain of literature on the centre and is other person regarding. The
how to improve our communica�on skills. Here serving life derives from a life that is graced by
I will only touch on what I consider to be the God and this is true life.” (31) If I start with the
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