Talking like wild amoebas

This thing called communication, which I majored in in college, is a difficult thing to master, at best.

We go to Dairy Queen the other day and my 7-year-old tiny dancer, Gavin, says he wants a Coke float. We get him one. We drive away. About halfway home, he says, "this is gross. It's like real Coke poured over ice cream." We say, "Gavin, that's what it is. Didn't you know that?" He says, "No. I never had one."

I'm looking at my bank statement online yesterday and there is a $52 deduction from the church website for which I have agreed to a $5 a month charge. When I called them, they said, "well, you've had the home package since 2004, and that is what that is. You want the basic package." I said, "But you've been taking out $5 a month since January. What was that for?" They said, "Hold on, let us get back with you in a moment."

Yeah, well.

Communication, I figure, is the thing we have most struggled with lately. I read a blog from a gay man that called Franklin Graham "evil" because of his beliefs about the Bible's teaching on homosexuality. Franklin Graham has used some of that same sort of language about gay persons. What is one person's evil is another person's gruff, or rough, or tough, or even too harsh to be productive.

Communication. It is what makes the world not go round. Wise sage the late Fred Rogers said this, "Anything that's human is mentionable, and anything that is mentionable can be more manageable. When we can talk about our feelings, they become less overwhelming, less upsetting, and less scary. The people we trust with that important talk can help us know that we are not alone."

In other words, if persons of two entirely different backgrounds, entirely different opinions, entirely different ideas about what life can or should be, maybe just maybe we can get past the "evil" language and actually talk about what the scriptures seem to say. If we do that, then we won't be going on opinion as much as we will be going on the true will of God.

Of course, then someone has to determine just what that is. And there we go again. But I'm convinced that if we don't learn to come together, then we're going to learn to come apart, splitting like wild amoebas.

And the tears of God will be evident.