A sermon delivered by The Rev. Kathy Schmitz on October 21, 2007
At Pathways Church, A Unitarian Universalist Community in Southlake, Texas
Even the choices words lose their power when they are used to overpower.
Attitudes are the real figures of speech.
Rabbi Edwin H. Friedman
Reading before the sermon:
from The House at Pooh Corner, By A.A. Milne, Chapter VII In Which Tigger is Unbounced
When I penciled in communication for my topic this morning, I forgot, once again, that you can’t really do a sermon on communication – at least not a single sermon. I remembered as soon as I sat down to write. The problem is that human communication is too big a topic for any one sermon.
It’s not like I haven’t discovered this before.
I learned it when I’ve preached on listening – funny things, that, preaching on listening. That’s why I thought, this time, I’d have our reading and meditation cover the listening part.
Playing off a popular book and some old sermon titles here at Pathways, I thought about titling today “Why does bad communication happen to good people?”
There are so many aspects to communication. Beyond the issues of listening.
Anyone here ever read a book on how to be more assertive and or been to a workshop on how to advocate for a cause? Speaking up for yourself is a whole subsection of communication.
I’ve preached on right speech. Drawing on the Buddhist teaching, we ask, how do we say the right thing at the right time in the right way?
I’ve cautioned against the assumption that other people can read your mind. I don’t know if any of you received mind reading training as part of your occupational development. I can report that they don’t teach mind reading in seminary. And yet, I’ve had people to express anger that I did not visit them in the hospital and I can only respond… I didn’t even know you were in the hospital.
My favorite area of communication challenges come from an area we could call confusion and misunderstanding. This one subsection could itself be a sermon series. If we were the sort of people who believed in the existence an evil entity who intentionally put obstacles in our way, this would be its playground. If we could get past the cultural differences and mismatched assumptions, we would move on to hormone imbalances, stress, and lack of sleep. And it’s not like our evil entity isn’t endlessly creative. If we get past all those traditional communication pitfalls now we have email and instant messaging and other technological wonders – or, as Charlie says, blunders.
Edward R. Murrow (April 25, 1908 – April 27, 1965, American journalist and media figure.) said:
The newest computer can merely compound, at speed, the oldest problem in the relations between human beings, and in the end the communicator will be confronted with the old problem, of what to say and how to say it.
And Murrow died in 1965 – he had no idea what we were headed for.
I’m a great fan of technology but, as a society, we are still learning to use it.
Charlie and I have a deal about email. When one of us gets an email we find upsetting, we ask the other one to read it to us, putting on it the most positive spin we can. Might there be a more positive way to understand it than we first imagined?
Likewise, when we are going to send a potentially challenging email, before hitting send, we ask the other to read it aloud putting the worst possible spin on it. How might our thoughtful and well planned words be misinterpreted?
The challenges to us in communication are vast. It is sometimes a wonder to me that human communication works at all.
It occurs to me that perhaps the most profound spiritual practice that we could engage in with respect to communication is deep gratitude and praise whenever by some miracle it happens to work.
We notice, often with deep pain, when communication fails. But rarely do we take time to notice those occasions when it works, really works, and there is connections, relationship, understanding.
Thinking about all this from a religious perspective, there are many spiritual practices that we can engage in. Deep listening. Mindful speech. The assumption of good intentions. The golden rule.
These are much written and talked about and I suspect various people in the room have studied or practiced many of them.
This morning I would like to add another practice to our list of communication skills.
I would like to suggest the practice of generosity – or generous communication.
I’m not talking here about that attitude of good will toward another person – important as that is.
I’m talking here about countering what appears to be a human tendency to be stingy with our words. As if it would cost us more to add a clarifying sentence.
A couple examples:
One day, when our daughter Pam was a toddler, she was in a car seat in the backseat as I was driving. She was swinging her leg such that it was rhythmically hitting my seat, aggravating the headache I was nursing.
I told her stop. She did not. I told her to stop again – in a variety of ways. There were, it seemed to me some limits to my options, as she was barely verbal.
Finally, in a fit of frustration, and more for myself than for her, I said, “Pammy, when you kick the seat it hurts mommy’s head.”
“Oh!” She stopped.
She just needed to understand. It only took a few extra words on my part.
Then there was the story of two people watching the TV news in the waiting room of the service department of the car dealership. One of the people was an elderly woman. The other was my partner Charlie. On the news was the story of a public personality who had made statements against the war in Iraq. This was at a time when most of the main stream media was showing only support for the war. Charlie made a comment supporting the critique that had been made by the public personality. The woman looked at him in amazement. From watching main stream news, she had come to believe that she and the few friends she spoke with on the phone were the only people who had questions about the US action. She had found the news reports of total support confusing.
It only took a few words from a complete stranger, but now she did not feel so all alone in her opinion.
A few extra words… to child… to a stranger… can make all the difference… to understanding, to ending isolation.
And, this is not limited to spoken communication.
I remember noticing in one congregation that whenever it was time for a pot luck dinner, it was announced by putting an item on the calendar that said “Pot Luck Dinner.” No place. No words about who was included. I thought to myself. Well, surely we can spare enough ink to add things like “In the Social Hall” and “Everyone is welcome.” In the office we came up with a little standard announcement that could be used for every potluck. This helped. But even this was not generous enough. One night at a meeting someone told me that they have not been to a potluck because they didn’t know what they were supposed to bring. My first thought was, “It’s a pot luck – you bring whatever you want.” She wanted to know if she needed to sign up, how many to cook for, and host of other questions it had never occurred to me to answer. A bit chagrinned, we added more ink usage to our pot luck announcements.
This is the practice of generosity in communication I am talking about. What knowledge do I have, what assumptions do we make, that if shared with others could create understanding, end isolation, expand inclusion?
What few more words might make our world more welcoming?
What can assist us in our attempts to communicate more generously?
I went looking for spiritual support and stopped first at the Pathways DNA.
The Pathways DNA is a statement of the core convictions and practices of this community. It’s in a lot of the publications and it’s posted on the wall in the entry way. It has two parts. I expected to find the support I was looking for in the first part. The convictions. But found that more support was to be found in the second part: The Practices or Behaviors.
If you haven’t read this document, I recommend taking a look at it. If you are already familiar with it, read it again with this view toward generous communication. I’ll be interested to see if you find things that I did not.
Here are some terms and phrases that jumped out at me:
We welcome and embrace those who are new to our community and aspire to be sensitive to their needs.
We communicate open-minded respect…
We give generously out of an abundance mentality.
We assist each other…
We are intentional about sharing who we are and what we stand for…
We engage in outward directed service…
Not all of these words were written about communication... but they could have been.
Operating from a place of generosity and abundance in the area of communication… What few more words might make our congregation, our work places, our communities, our families, our world more welcoming?
We can wait for people to ask… but what if they don’t even know what question to ask? What if they don’t even know there is a question that could be asked?
Can we take a proactive attitude of generosity with us into world?
Now, of course, we’ve all had the frustration of having put information out in a good and clear way and still having someone miss it. Even with our really good announcement in the newsletter there were still people who showed up on Sundays and said “Oh, I wish I’d known there was a potluck last night.” Sigh… you can put it in the newsletter but you can’t make them read it.
In all our spheres of life we encounter these frustrations. As a clerk at the customer service desk who smiles politely even though the sign in really big letters posted right over our left shoulder says that the demanding person in front of us cannot have their way. As a supervisor whose direct reports cannot seems to remember to follow clearly established and documented procedures. As an employee who has repeatedly reported a problem to our boss, even filling out the form in triplicate, and yet it remains unresolved.
Yes, we try. We put the information out there and sometimes it is taken in and sometimes it is not.
It would be easy to give up. But still we need to try.
Over the years, in various trainings, I have heard it said that for people to learn something they need to hear it, or experience it, 6 times, preferably in 6 different ways.
For me this is an important theological point having to do with scripture.
In some religious traditions, there is a piece or body of scripture that is considered the sole source of revelation – typically received from a divine source.
Now here is what I think about that.
If modern social science can tell us that to get a point across you have to communicate it at least 6 times, in hopefully 6 different ways – then wouldn’t you expect that, if I were a divine source capable of dictating of body of scripture, that I, too, would know that my lessons would have to be communicated in a variety of ways.
I don’t even need to argue about whether the various scriptures of the world are divinely inspired. I can just suggest that they are not the only sources of wisdom available to us. Current understanding tells us that we need at least 5 more ways for people to learn. And then I thought, hey, I’m part of a religious tradition that has, yes, let count them, 6 sources. These also are listed in our publications and posted in the front hallway. In summary, the Unitarian Universalist sources tells us we tend to draw on such sources as:
* Direct experience;
* Words and deeds of prophetic women and men;
* Wisdom from the world's religions;
* Jewish and Christian teachings;
* Humanist teachings; and
* Spiritual teachings of earth-centered traditions
So many ways to learn, to be inspired.
Our world, our universe, is generous with its communication.
My friend and colleague, The Rev. Steve Landale, is minister of the UU Church in Eugene, Oregon. The words that follow the contact information in his email signature capture this idea of a generously communicating universe well. He says: “Scripture is everywhere. Pay attention.”
What, after all, is scripture?
That which speaks to our hearts, deepens our understanding, offers us guidance.
“Scripture is everywhere. Pay attention.” says Steve.
There is no one source for wisdom. Nor could there be. For in an evolving universe there is always more to know. Revelation is not sealed. It continues to unfold.
And here is the interesting part.
We are part of that unfolding.
You are part of that unfolding.
So just as scripture can be found in a children’s book or by studying an ant hill.
In the wisdom of the worlds traditions or the words and deeds of women and men.
So, too, scripture can be found in the words that you utter.
You are part of this creation that continues to unfold.
The words you share can speak to someone’s heart.
The words you choose can deepen someone’s understanding.
The words you speak can offer someone guidance.
Yet, always remember that the opposite is also true.
How you communicate can hurt. It can confuse. It can lead astray.
How you communicate matters. Be like the continuously unfolding universe of which you are a part.
Communicate generously.
Your words are important. They can have great power.
They are part of the unfolding scripture of our universe.
“Scripture is everywhere.”
Even in you.