Screaming Out

Call me a cynic but sitting here today I got to thinking about communication. Or the lack of rather. Maybe lack is a bad word. Perhaps we haven’t the talent to communicate anymore. We have umpteen different mediums in which to "communicate" but we are not hearing one another or sharing the heart. We have the good old telephone and now the cell version which travels with us wherever we go. There is the internet with email and IM~ing and a whole new cyber language to go with it. It is all shortened up and lacking substance. Gone are the old fashion longhand written letters of yesteryear. These were treasures that had been deemed worthy of saving and we even find some in museums and added to books. Starting in the 90’s on forward everything has pretty much been deleted so future generations won’t have that to ponder over and get insight to who we were.

Does this hurried, self-absorbed way we have found ourselves in also cross over in the kinds of face to face conversations we have? In many of my experiences it has. Church seems to be the only place I have found lately that is conducive to deep communicating. Outside of that we still seem to be ruled by the psychologies and philosophies of this present world. Most of which is brought to us not by Plato or even that lost rascal Freud, but now we get our personal make-up from what is fed to us from that soul sucking medium television. Do we really want future generations to weigh us based on the Jerry Springers and Paris Hiltons of today? Scary thought isn’t it?

Ok, now lets narrow that vision down into something more defined. Our homes. How are we communicating with our spouses, our children? Do we bring the media influences into our responses? Do we also bring in the cutthroat, competitive professional world into it? When we stand back objectively to look at that can we honestly say it translates well into the home?
I know my husband admits to having trouble turning off his business ear when he and I communicate. He is a black and white get to the facts sort of person at work and he sometimes brings that home. That is not a good relationship tool. It is great if one thrives in conflict. He admits to having a delete button in his head. What he deems as unimportant gets deleted and he will not recall it no matter how much you try to reboot that program. We all can identify with that analogy I’m sure. That screaming at the monitor pounding your head into the keyboard frustration.

How do you feel media exposure has influenced the way our kids communicate with us and visa versa? You just winced didn’t you?

I’m sitting here doing what I’m professing to not liking. I’m hurrying through this entry because I have so many other things I need to get to. As a result I am not communicating effectively what it is I’m trying to convey. This happened last night between Bob and me. I started sharing with him the pain I have been feeling lately and instead of taking each other by the hand and going for a walk to talk, we ended up getting busy with task because "these things HAVE to get done." So, what happens? The feelings get pushed down, stuffed in deep to fester. What could have been used as a time for closeness and healing instead made distance and resentment for both of us.

Why am I so frank in saying that? Because we need to, all of us, recognize what it is we are doing to ourselves and one another when we let the world become more important than the relationship we have with one another and God. We need to get honest with ourselves about these sorts of things. The society as a whole tends to flow on a certain tide for so long it is marked as acceptable and normal. Never mind that that flow is swirling us down a drain.


Hey, it’s election year. If that isn’t a poster child for communication dysfunction I don’t know what is.