To be heard, the message must be received

By Mary Regina Morrell
Catholic Online

"People have important things to communicate. Speaking from your heart allows the emotionally difficult, the ordinary, and the wonderful things in our lives to be communicated and received." David McArthur and Bruce McArthur

Many years ago, when my second son was just about seven years old, I asked him to help me clean up after dinner so I could take care of his baby brother.

He asked me what he should do with the leftover spaghetti sauce. From my place on the couch in the family room I yelled in and said, "Put it in the empty bottle on the counter, the one near the sink."

"You want me to put it in the bottle?" he asked. I could hear the anxiety levels rising in his voice.

"Yes, the empty bottle on the counter," I replied again.

A few seconds later I heard his agitated voice, "How am I supposed to get it in the bottle?"

"Just hold up the pot and let it pour out or use a spoon," I answered, wondering why this was so difficult for him to grasp.

I could hear him in the kitchen; he sounded near to tears but I was not about to go in and do it for him. It was important to let him learn how to do things for himself, I reminded myself.

Finally, his job done, he went upstairs to his room still mumbling under his breath.

A short time later when I went into the kitchen to make some tea I noticed something strange on the counter near the sink.

It was a baby bottle -- filled with spaghetti sauce. You can imagine the laughter!

With his literal child's mind, my son later explained to me that the only bottle on the counter was a baby bottle. The other glass container, though it sported a label for spaghetti sauce, was a jar. Duh! How could I have made such a mistake??

The story has since become one of those "remember when" stories that all families love to recall, but it has also been an important lesson in communication for me.

The problem, I have since realized, is that I failed to do something that good communicators routinely do - focus on the receiver.

A very wise friend explained the process to me this way: "If you want people to understand what we envision, we have to put ourselves in their shoes and shape it so they can receive it."

Good communicators can shift the focus from their need to say something to the receiver's need to hear and make whatever adjustments are necessary to meet the other's needs. This is relational communication because it requires that an effort be made to really know and understand those to whom we speak

Jesus was this kind of communicator, always shaping his teaching to the experiences and understanding of the people.

We see it in the parables he spoke to the crowds, stories crafted in the language of their experience, stories planting seeds of faith and understanding. But we see the power of Jesus' ability to communicate even more so when he speaks to individuals, telling each person the one thing they need most to know - the paralytic who needed to be forgiven, the women with the hemorrhage, the Samaritan woman at the well, Zacchaeus the tax collector, the woman caught in adultery. Jesus knew the heart of each person and shaped his words and his message to be received by their hearts as well. Because of this, each one of these people experienced metanoia, the change of heart required to be true disciples of Christ.

If we are to be powerful communicators of the Gospel then we must invest the time walking in the other's shoes and discovering the other's heart because metanoia can only take place when the message is received.

Contact

Diocese of Metuchen
http://www.diometuchen.org NJ, US
Mary Regina Morrell - Associate Director, Office of Religious Education, 732 562.1990

Email

mmorrell@diometuchen.org

Keywords

bottle, message, heard, received, Gospel

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