More than agreement: The real goal of communication

“I just don’t know how to connect with this person,” I confided to a friend. I wanted to, I wanted to build a bridge, to connect, to find common ground, but we were just so different. I honestly didn’t know where to begin, I felt like anything deeper than surface-level conversation would inevitably lead into the treacherous waters of areas where we sharply disagreed. Emphasis on sharply.  *sigh*

What should I do? 

So often in this situation, we stay in the shallow waters of Safe Communication: No politics, no religion. The challenge is, pretty much all of life — except, say, the weather — eventually ties into someone’s deeply held religious or political views. It is impossible for me to communicate deeply with someone without “my faith” spilling out over into it somewhere or another. How we parent, our consumer habits, our lifestyle choices, all of this stems from our deeply held religious or political beliefs.

And I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but political and religious issues are pretty much front-and-center these days!

So how do we really connect with someone with whom we sharply disagree on critical issues?

“What do we even talk about??” 

My friend, after listening to my lament, answered so plainly and simply:

“Why don’t you ask questions to try to understand where she’s coming from? Maybe you could better understand her point of view if you asked her more questions about it?”

Ha!

Well, then. Yes. Yes, that would be a good idea. The problem was, the idea of asking this person to openly divulge all her reasons for believing a certain way, for basically unloading her truckload of data for why she chose a certain lifestyle, it made my blood pressure rise just thinking about it. I could feel my heart start to race. I was physically responding to the stress of having to hear strong opinions that go directly against the life we’ve chosen to lead.

Whoa, then. There’s another issue going on, right?

See, what my friend helped me to understand was that the reason this situation was troubling to me, was that deep-down I had some insecurity, or felt threatened in some way. The reason I wasn’t willing to enter into the dangerous waters of discussing areas of disagreement was that I felt a need to defend my way. I didn’t see that there would be any way we’d ever agree, so why talk about it?

Isn’t the goal of communication to come to agreement? Isn’t that the whole point? To connect by finding common ground?

No. Actually it isn’t.

Forgive me for being so remedial, seriously I’m telling you some days I’m like, “How on earth did I get to be 36 years old and never learn this? Good grief.” But anyway, yesterday at church a seasoned saint Paul Hunter said something that about knocked me out of my chair with its simplicity and piercing truth:

The goal of communication isn’t agreement. The goal of communication is understanding. 

My goal, in reaching out to someone and communicating with them for the sake of connecting with them, isn’t for the sake of agreeing. That isn’t the goal. It isn’t so that I can go to her side or she can come to mine. It isn’t even that we necessarily find “common ground.” We may not.

The goal is that I can better understand her. Understand him. 

Right now I’m reading How to Talk so Kids Can Learn. I’m only a little ways in but wow, it’s so good! It’s basically saying the same thing — we must communicate in ways that we are truly seeking to understand and empathize with how our children are feeling, before we can lead them effectively into learning, obeying, etc. The goal is not compliance, it’s reaching into their hearts and carefully leading them out of selfishness, despair, immaturity, overwhelm, and into courage, obedience, excellence, love.

Easier said than done. The question was, “Did I love this person enough to put my whole heart and soul into seeking to understand her?” Did I care enough to do that, or did I just want the so-called peace of finding agreement on certain issues.

Are we willing to do the hard work of understanding the other side? Understanding others? Or do we just want to “speak our mind” or stay in the safe zone, content with surface-waters of weather when there’s so much more to be known.

Do I really want to understand my child or do I just want them to comply so I can get on with my day.

This stuff is so much simpler on paper than in life. It’s messy. We try it and fail and try it again. But it’s a noble goal, and a necessary one, especially if we are to love one another through difficult days. And even though I sometimes feel hopelessly remedial in this area, I want to learn.

I want to understand. 

{Perhaps this idea will come in handy this week… Thanks for reading.}