The art of communicating

 

Image by Olena from Pixabay

I watched as people streamed into the auditorium to listen to a much-respected and well-known preacher. There was a lot of excitement in the audience, and expectations were high. This was the first day of a three-day conference, and the speaker bombed. His sermon fell flat, and the audience left disappointed. The next morning, he spent in conversation with the local pastor before isolating himself. That evening, the congregation dragged themselves into the church. The chattering and shuffling of the night before were gone. There was an air of inevitability. The sermon and meeting as a whole was a resounding success. What changed? The preacher was the same, the venue was the same, and the audience was the same.

In the modern world, communication has become a science all on its own, a necessary subject to master if you wish to be successful. You need to be able to communicate if you wish to sell something, advertise, write, teach, lead, or even apply for a job.

A meaningful life

 

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Richard was dead. For forty years I had been planning to look him up and apologize for my reaction to something he had said as a joke. When I did eventually look for him, I discovered that he had died ten years after the incident and that shocked me and had me scratching about in the past: photographs, messages, and school yearbooks. Names and faces had my brain racing. Was I ever that young? Some names made me smile, some I remembered with displeasure, some I did not.

Thirty of us sat in a classroom forty years ago, and I don't recall one of them trying to contact me since then. I don't blame them. I am not an easy person to get along with. I am not one who would be remembered. I would call very few friends even though we spent five years in the same classroom. Still, I wondered what had become of them.

Death and life are in your words

 

Start training your brain.

After investigations, which included experimentation on cats, scientists in the 1940s and 50s made the astounding discovery – the human brain can be programmed to be more alert and attentive in certain areas.

There is a part of the brain known as the Reticular Activating System and it has an important role in deciding your success or failure. Lori Rothstein describes it as ‘starting above your spinal cord and it's about two inches long, it's about the width of a pencil, and it's where all your senses come in.’ ⁱ

Stedman’s Medical Dictionary defines the reticular activating system as:

The part of the reticular formation in the brainstem that plays a central role in bodily and behavioral alertness; its ascending connections affect the function of the cerebral cortex and its descending connections affect bodily posture and reflex mechanisms.ⁱⁱ

The Christian Militant

The martyrdom of St. Stephen
 by Juan Correa de Vivar 

...for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword. Mat 26:52

From the outset, the Christian church has been under attack. Stephen was stoned, James beheaded, and the apostles beaten and imprisoned, yet there was no retaliation, no revenge, and no counterstruggle, at least not a physically violent one. Their methods of combat were prayer, compassion, and preaching because they believed:

2Cor.10:4  For the weapons of our warfare are not fleshly, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds, and yet:

Acts 6:7  And the Word of God was increasing. And the number of the disciples in Jerusalem was multiplying exceedingly; even a great crowd of the priests obeyed the faith.

For the next three centuries Christians were persecuted, murdered, used for circus entertainment, set alight as human torches, and fed to wild animals, and yet:

Acts 12:24...the Word of God grew and increased.

Over the years Christians were attacked by Romans, Jews, Persians, Muslims, Vikings, pagans, and even other Christians, and yet:

Acts 19:20  So the Word of God grew mightily and prevailed.

Christianity has been at war since the birth of Jesus when Herod sent his army to kill the babes of Bethlehem. Its weapons of resistance have always been the Word of God and prayer. It was a war won with the blood of martyrs, some of whom gave their lives voluntarily. The endless attacks eventually spilled over into physical retaliation. 

Sea Fever by John Masefield

 

I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,

And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by;

And the wheel’s kick and the wind’s song and the white sail’s shaking,

And a grey mist on the sea’s face, and a grey dawn breaking.

 

I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide

Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;

And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,

And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.

 

I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,

To the gull’s way and the whale’s way where the wind’s like a whetted knife;

And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,

And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick’s over.

Writer's Block or Writer's Blindness

I sit staring at the computer screen not knowing what to write. This is my first experience of writer’s block and I do not like it. My mind is as blank as the screen and as dumb as the pointer. Nothing makes sense and the words I try to type don’t connect coherently. My thoughts are random and pointless. It feels as if someone has inflated a balloon inside my head and all my thoughts are stuck behind it, unable to penetrate or go around the rubber wall.

I have read enough articles about writer’s block to recognize the symptoms, and not so long ago I even scoffed, inwardly of course, that it would never happen to me. I would always have something to write about I boasted to myself. But now, after several wordless weeks have passed and my screen is still blank, I have to admit the worst has happened. I scratch my head and every other place that is scratchable but nothing helps and I tug my spectacles from my face in frustration. I might as well pack up and do something else I think to myself.