technology and relationships ? The Life-Charged Life

technologies are just a tool

This weekend I?m sharing a few thoughts about communication.

Unfortunately, we live in a culture where many people seem to lack the fundamental skills necessary to discuss dissimilar viewpoints without shaking their fists, yelling, and becoming defensive and belligerent.

Sadly, today?s cutting edge communication technologies seem to have achieved little other than exacerbating the problem by giving the thoughtless even less time to consider ?a more excellent way.? Constructive conversation will always require grace to get off the ground, and grace is a spiritual gift seemingly in short supply when it comes to communication in 2012.

1978-79: Back when Rebekah and I were dating (and then engaged) she completed her first year of graduate school in Atlanta while I was still in central Florida. We managed one expensive phone call per week. I?ll never forget the long-distance argument that cost well over $30. I sat in a phone booth in the Student Union Building at Stetson, feeding quarters into the phone until I ran out of money. The conversation wasn?t over, but when the phone went dead I thought that maybe the relationship was!

So I fine-tuned my letter-writing skills, we went out of our way to get together as soon as possible, we learned to listen more deliberately, and we did everything possible to communicate at the highest level we could.

INTENTION: Today our options for connectivity are beyond amazing. Yet so many people still fail to make any real effort to understand one-another?s point of view.

Ineffective communication is cited as one of the primary reasons that marriages fail, children become alienated from their parents, neighborhoods stop being neighborly, friendships falter, churches stagnate, communities fragment, governments remain ineffective and nations go to war.

Our grandson, David (aka Mr Wonderful) may live in Connecticut, far away from Grandaddy Derek and Grandmama Rebekah, but he knows us quite well despite the distance. Yes, the technology helps (our Skype connection is amazingly clear), but it?s the specific and consistent intentionality of, ?We want to communicate and we?ll go out of our way to do it?? that?s really building the relationship.

Our daughter, Naomi, calls several times a day. We exchange text messages. She shoots us 30-second?grand-baby?video clips. We catch her facebook updates. She knows that we care deeply about her life with her husband Craig, and we know that they want to be a part of our lives too.

I know people who both live in the same house yet talk less!

GOT TO HAVE THE WANT-TO:?But there?s no level of technological connectivity that will ever compensate for the fundamental lack of effort that besets so many of the people who complain that their relationships don?t work.

• So turn off the game already, and actually talk to your wife!
• Schedule a conversational family meal time at least three nights a week.
• Show some interest in other people rather than droning on about yourself all the time!
• Use your smart-phone as a communication tool rather than A) a gaming device, B) a means to drop biting one-liners about other people?s politics, and C) an excuse to work instead of talking with your family over dinner?.

at least be polite! (stock photo)

AND AT LEAST BE POLITE: We are a world desperately in need of more people willing to understand one-another. However, too many of us seem to have forgotten the essential elements of polite and meaningful conversation. Here are five to go on:

1. Respect is more important than agreement.
2. Listen more than you talk.
3. There?s no need to raise your voice.
4. Poor manners and rudeness never facilitate a meeting of the minds.
5. Always be prepared (and delighted) to learn something from the other person.

The real beauty of two (or more) people with a variety of opinions is the opportunity we have to learn from one another. Unfortunately, some of the least willing to listen without instant defensiveness and aggressiveness are people who claim to follow God!

Paul?s? advice here is hard to ignore:

^?Let love be genuine.?Hate what is evil; cling to what is good.^?Be devoted to one another in love.?Honor one another above yourselves.^?Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor,?serving the Lord.?Be joyful in hope,?patient in affliction,faithful in prayer.?^?Share with the Lord?s people who are in need.?Practice hospitality.?^?Bless those who persecute you;?bless and do not curse.?Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn.^?Live in harmony with one another.?Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position.?Do not be conceited. (Romans 12)

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Source: http://derekmaul.wordpress.com/2012/08/04/technology-and-relationships/

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