Listen to my Words!

I was listening to the radio the other day and I heard a short clip of a guy talking about the legalization of recreational pot.  He casually said that he believed in freedom and people’s rights and he didn’t see how you could throw people in jail because of a plant.

Before that, on another day previous to the Robert Mueller report coming out (the report that was looking into Donald Trump’s activities surrounding Russia and so forth), it seemed that in order to diminish whatever might be revealed, Trump said, "It's sort of interesting that a man out of the blue just writes a report.”

When people who are against the Church talk about the Church, they say things like “it’s just a man made institution.”

I guess I hadn’t really noticed a pattern before, but now that I’ve seen it, I’m beginning to wonder, “Why the over-simplification?”  

Over-simplifying things like recreational pot usage, or downplaying a thoroughly researched two-year report, or taking a complex, human and divine entity like the Church and reducing it in this way, leads to no other conclusion but that one is making a poor attempt to dismiss any concern about them.

This not a useful approach to argue one’s point.

The reason I bring this up is because if we are going to have productive discussions about matters of importance, careful listening becomes a skill that we need to polish.  And, also, we need to hone our ability to take complex ideas—and not over-simplify them—but clarify them, so that we can have reasonable, fruitful conversations around them.

I read a little quip one day about how we never hear what people are saying because we are too busy preparing our own defensive comeback while they are speaking!

As we continue through these 50 days of Easter that lead us to the birthday of the Church on Pentecost, let us remember that if we think we have a point that is worth making, we first need to make sure that it is made in such a way that the receiver can receive it without feeling the need to busy themselves in preparing a comeback!

Even Peter, in the second chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, before he gave his big speech, said, “Listen to my words!”  

I guess we aren’t the only ones prone to closing our ears when someone is trying to make a point, as Peter’s warning reveals.

God bless,

Janet Cassidy

Janetcassidy.com

Janetcassidy.blubrry.net