Stephen Covey writes of an incident while taking the subway one Sunday. On a quiet ride through New York City a man and his children burst onto the train. The children ran wild, shouting, screaming, and wrestling, while their father made no attempt to intervene. Finally Covey turned to the father and said, “Sir, perhaps you could restore order here by telling your children to come back and sit down.”
“I know I should do something,” the man replied. “We just came from the hospital. Their mother died an hour ago. I just don’t know what to do.”
On any given day we run into people and make quick assessments about their character or motives based on what we see or hear from them. I think we can safely assume our assessments are usually wrong or grossly incomplete. Like Covey’s experience, we will never know what’s truly going on in a person until we have meaningful communication.
I suppose it’s necessary for us to make quick judgments in our fast paced culture. But with the universal acceptance of cyber communication, email specifically, real human contact and interaction has suffered a life threatening blow. When we actually do have face to face interaction with real people, we are often prone to misinterpret the motives behind their words or deeds. Of course, if you prefer not to do the work of real communication, email may be your greatest asset--- the fence behind which you may safely hide from human contact.
Not only do we make faulty judgments about others, they make wrong assumptions about us. I often wonder how society works as well as it does. On the national level, those who know how the political game is played are keenly aware that the majority of American voters may be swayed to their candidate by one simple sound bite; a single sentence quoted out of context can bring down a giant before he knows what hit him. I’m a little amused at those who criticize public figures who use teleprompters. When someone like the President makes a speech, he knows that every single phrase and word he chooses will be dissected by his enemies who are dedicated to entrap him by his own words. I have sympathy for those who would choose to read from scripts—especially when they are walking through a minefield of critics.
Jesus, himself, was constantly set up by his enemies with trick questions in order for them to have something negative to say against him. Over the years I’ve heard a number of Christians accuse St. Paul of being condescending to women, arrogant, and homophobic. All these assumptions are based on a severe lack of knowledge of the full teachings and intent of the New Testament. If Jesus and St. Paul can be misinterpreted and misrepresented, why should any of us be surprised when we are misunderstood? On occasion we might choose to follow the example of our Lord who didn’t open his mouth when on trail before Pontius Pilate.
Communication is perhaps the hardest work we will ever do. God grant us the grace to be slow to judge the actions and words of others. As Scripture teaches: “…swift to hear, slow to speak…” (James 1:19)
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