Some Days I Feel Too Dumb For Words....

I relearned kind of an important lesson yesterday about communication, which is that if you want to make certain that people understand what you mean, you'd better first be sure that they know what you're talking about.

Next Saturday our congregation will be holding a six hour All-Church "Visioning Event," focused on the theme of "Bring Your Passion, Create a Plan." The event will be facilitated by our District Executive, who will be using a format called "Open Space Technology" which (as I understand it) begins by creating a "Marketplace of Ideas" where people come to "pitch" their idea, and then are assigned a time and a place where others can come to help them develop their notion into a full-blown plan.

So yesterday, as part of the publicity for this event, I stood up in church and described MY idea -- which is to give a knit stocking cap with an embroidered image of the Meetinghouse on it to every kid in our Sunday School. (I'd also like to get ball caps on the heads of all the grown-ups too, but I'm starting with the kids because they appreciate it so much more). I was even wearing one of the hats at the time, but what I didn't understand is that people couldn't really see the embroidered image, so they were also a little confused about what in the world I was so excited about.

Eventually someone brought this to my attention, so I was able to walk through the Sanctuary and give everyone there a good look at the top of my head, and thus figure out what was actually on my mind. And I was reminded once again that just because something is right before our eyes, it doesn't mean that everyone else sees it too. As painful as it may seem, it never really hurts to point out the obvious. It's better to be thought too dumb for words, than to let your own silence contribute to mutual misunderstanding....