FAMILY MATTERS April 2011 THE TWELVE C’S OF LOVE: 1 Corinthians 13 and More…
C IS FOR COMMUNICATION
Introduction
Bumper Stickers sometimes bring us up short with their pointed messages. Here’s a good example of one. “My Wife Says I Never Listen. At Least That’s What I Think She Said.” Beneath the humor it reflects the number one problem in any close relationship: a lack of sound, meaningful, open communication. So one of the primary tasks of love is to learn how to communicate, to genuinely listen, then to practice it in good measure from a willing heart. And since we live in a culture of noise and distractions, learning how to communicate and listen is no easy matter. But if love is to happen and relationships are to be made need-satisfying in our relating, then communication and listening are a major key to making that happen. Love knows this and determines to make it a reality. It is what breathing is to the human body. We breathe to live. We cannot live long without it. Nor can a relationship apart from meaningful levels of communication. This is how it sustains itself. This is also the secret to its longevity, well-being, and wholeness. So, communicate, we must.
1. Communication is More than Talking
Talking can be a way of opening up to one another, helping us get beyond our fears of sharing our insides with another. Good relationships are built on intimacy and intimacy is built on getting to know one another. Talking, sharing is the key. Talking can also be a way of avoiding one another if all we do is talk, using it defensively, aggressively, or even passive-aggressively. This assures there will be no intimacy. We can use talking as a barrier-building mechanism. We can use it in hiding our true selves from the other, especially when we fear what that true self may be. Talking needs to be a wonderful beginning to what can be built between us, allowing things to go deeper and deeper until the two of us can feel comfortable in knowing one another. We are not talking just to talk. We are communicating one heart to that of the other.
2. Communication is More than Listening
Nothing is more frustrating than talking to one who is not listening. Listening is an art that has to be learned. But, we can listen only to get a wedge in with the other, leading to high levels of frustration in the relating. We can also use it as a way of just being polite to another when in reality we do not want to listen, especially when the other talks like a broken record with the same stuff over and over again. What we are really avoiding is intimacy. Many hope the other person is learning to listen so we can use talking as a way of controlling them and avoiding anything deeper. But what we need to grasp is the fact that without listening there can be no closeness or intimacy. Listening is a move toward and into intimacy that involves learning to listen with the heart. True intimacy is always a matter of the heart. The heart learns to listen and it can hear even what is being said within a message of silence. Active listening allows us the privilege to enter into the listener and for the listener to enter into us. When this entering is allowed to happen, then intimacy is real between us.
3. Communication is Self-Disclosing
We have an external self and an inward self and love takes place within the inner self manifesting in our actions and sharing with others. Sharing our self and our real needs lets the other know who we are, where we are at, and what makes us the unique person we are. It allows us to be known. We learn the same of them. We do this best by learning to use ‘I statements’ that share who we are as well as what we need and what we have to offer. Wanting the other to know where we are at and why leads to meaningful dialogue between us. Self-clarification and openness leads to being known, accepted and approved of as who we are. Any and every close relationship builds on self-disclosure. The more we are able to share this inner self with the other the sooner we come to recognize our own worth and discover the ability to live out that worth. This sharing is the basis of relationship building. It forces us to face our fears and move beyond them. Love does that. Wanting to be known to become close in need satisfying ways becomes its own reward. This is what makes two hearts into one and allows them to beat as one.
4. Communication is Understanding the Levels of Sharing
Casual, surface sharing: “Hi, how are you?” “I’m fine, thank you…and how are you?” may serve us in greeting strangers, but it will never do in relationship building. Sharing to be able to control another is also self-defeating because it lacks honesty as well as honest feelings. Men are noted for brevity; women go for the details! She asks, “How did your day go?” He answers, “Fine,” or “Okay.” She asks for details and he has trouble providing them. When she is asked, she begins at the beginning and takes it to a meaningful conclusion. She may have lost him along the way but that’s his problem. Sharing is so important to building and maintain intimacy, and it cannot be achieved apart from it. There are no shortcuts. Critical in all this is the sharing of feelings. Share to know and be known by letting the other share feelings and concerns and hopes and fears, etc.. This is sharing at the deepest level of all. This is being intimate. For example, how do you feel about being the life’s partner to your mate? “This is how I feel about being one with you. It makes me feel like….” Such sharing leads to the deepest levels possible.
5. Communication is Understanding and Sharing
Without adequate and meaningful communication how is the other to come to know us and for us to know and understand them? Now comes the understanding that leads to my saying this is who you are to me based on your self-disclosure and now you can tell me who I am to you based on your understanding. Sharing leads to understanding and deeper understandings lead to more intense sharing. Now we are free to share with one another how this level makes us feel. Now I am understanding your insides and you mine. This is what being “us” means and this is what it means to me. “This is what I love about you and why.” “Let me tell you how this makes me feel.” Now look what has happened to our level of sharing. Now we can share: “This is what I hope our future will be and this is how I feel we are doing to achieve it. “ How do you feel about it; are we on the same page?” Now we know where to go from here. We are in it together. When we are able to complete each other’s statements and wishes and dreams, think of what this means to the depths of our relating.
6. Communication Leads to Awareness, Spontaneity and Intimacy
The enemies of any close relationship are the dangers involved in a lack of understanding of the other, where that person is at, the felt-need of having to be on your guard with that person and intimacy may be desired but so far is only spotty or brief, at best. The joys of any close relationship are knowing the other in growing stages of true intimacy, being able to act spontaneously with the other knowing you are accepted, affirmed and approved of, and the deep and abiding joys that true intimacy provide. This does not happen without intentionality, commitment and a real sharing in need satisfying ways on a dependable basis. That’s what love is; that’s how love operates. And true intimacy is its own reward. Through the years of a good marriage you learn to look back and see what the journey has meant to you. You will find you are not the person who began this journey however long ago. You have grown, matured, even changed. And you see the same in your partner. You have brought out the best in each other. This process will be unending as long as your sharing continues at these deeper levels. We call it “togetherness.” Being one. It is what God intended marriage to be. This is how it is to happen. We partner with Him in realizing this potential.
7. Communication is the Major Key to Togetherness
Two unknowns do not share well; their relating is governed by their fears. Instead of becoming lovers and sharers, they remain as takers and demanders and seldom become givers. They are in it for what they can get. How sad. More than that, how tragic. If they could only realize how it could be if…. 1 John points out that “love chases away all fear.” Togetherness teaches us the true meanings of love. We cannot learn to love without it. And such love leaves no room for fear. Togetherness is built on the art of becoming one. It is heavenly. It is a sharing together at the feeling level. Mastering the art of togetherness is what makes it work best. This achieves the most needed level of relating in need satisfying ways. It carries a couple through thick and thin, through want and plenty, and blesses them with the benediction of His abiding presence in all of their life together. This is how He leads us to realize its full potential. His Spirit enables us to achieve this in good measure. We live it out to the glory of God and to our own mutual joy.
In Conclusion
Learning how to go for the gold and learning how we feel about our journey together brings us into a togetherness that keeps us going the distance day by day no matter what may come our way. We know we do not face it alone. Not only do we have each other but more than that we have Him. This reality reassures us that the best is yet ahead of us. Every new day moves us more and more toward that goal. Our excitement about our relationship does not dim.
Being willing to pay the price of making this happen means an investing of ourselves in the relationship that is His gift to us and how we manage it is our gift to Him, to each other, and to ourselves. Its true meaning will give our family the example they will come to cherish in their own relating. They will seek to replicate it in their relationships. We are working at it as one seeking a true treasure. It feels so good and so satisfying. The treasure we find day by day is more than we could have ever anticipated at the beginning.
Along the way we will get the help we need to make it all it can be. It is too important to us to settle for anything less. Our reading resources enhance what we are building and achieving. Our discoveries enhance what we can add and will prove to be the guides we need. We see others around us who have settled for far less than God’s best. That is not going to be us. We want the relationship He has in store for us and we are determined to make it just that. Our love is our treasure to offer to Him and to His world.
Every couple can easily develop bad habits that threaten their relating and when these surface we are determined to work on them together. We know that when a marriage is allowed to coast it only moves forward when you coast downhill. And if we are to keep climbing we will have to work at it until He calls us Home.
Knowing we are not in this by ourselves we claim both His presence and His power to make it all it needs to be. Since every relationship is unique we can learn some lessons from observing others but in reality what we need most has to come from Him. We can never achieve what He has for us on our own. But at the same time He is partnering with us and we have to do our part in it as well. The Great Communicator is our Guide and Example.
To follow through on what needs to be and can be in place in your relating, let me encourage you to attend a Marriage Encounter. [www.marriageencounter.com.] You can go on line to find one that meets your need and reflects the faith community to which you belong. It is a weekend experience in heart to heart communication that leads to levels of dialoguing you might otherwise never achieve. They have groups for engaged couples, for newly marrieds, those along the way, and for older lovers. It will prove to be a life-changing weekend. Don’t think “But can we afford it?” You can’t afford not to! If in doubt check with your Pastor. When you get back, tell all you know what it has meant to you and your relationship. God is in it.
Dr. Emil J. Authelet
eauthelet@cox.net
Next Month:
C IS FOR CARING
