The Miracle of Dialogue

A Miracle of Insight about Interpersonal Communication This book is not only "an oldie and a goodie," it freights insights that are important and need to be widely known some fifty (50) years after it was written. Here are a few things this book and Reuel Howe taught me in 1965: 1. There are barriers to communication (which Howe defines as "the meeting of meanings") that are inevitably found in every relationship.2. Five of the barriers Howe explicates that tend to block the meeting of meanings are our images, defenses, anxieties, cross purposes, and words: a) The images we hold about our partner or things often "speak louder" to us than our partner's words; we therefore "can't hear" or discount what they are saying or view them in a wrong light. Seeing our potential mate reading Playboy or the Holy Bible may give us very accurate or very inaccurate information about them, depending upon our images.b) The defense mechanisms that helped us survive childhood now sometimes distort our perceptions; "blind" us to accurately seeing or hearing events and messages; cause us to impute values and motivations to others that are, in fact, our own; make us deny and forget that certain things were said or done, etc.c) The number and intensity or amount of the anxieties we carry, no matter how caused, can block accurate perception, hearing, and the amount of potentially threatening new information we can "take in." d) If partners hold crossed purposes they tend to have a barrier to communication than must be overcome or dealt with as they negotiate to a satisfying solution.e) The assumed meanings of words or language can vary according to individuals, families, traditions, regions, ethnic groups, religions, nations, etc. Mis-perception of meanings, negatively or positively, can lead to a presumed unity or agreement or to its opposite, to frustration, to false images of the partner, to shock, to anger and conflict, to felt betrayals, or blaming and accusations, etc. One little word can sometimes become a very big deal with real consequences, sometimes unnecessarily so. It is far better to check things out than reacting, over-reacting or "wildly running with our assumptions."Most people don't know that there are barriers to the meeting of meanings inevitably in even good relationships, nor that a communication grinch may not be anybody's fault! (We may just have bumped up against one or more of those invisible and inevitable "barriers.") Our 51% or greater divorce rate might indicate that most of us don't know that blaming or accusing one's partner when frustrated may just be compounding the problem, adding to the barriers that must be overcome for communion and communication to take place! In addition to those mentioned, we often create more barriers to communication when we angrily vent, yell at, use profanity, ridicule, label or call names, use sarcasm, constantly criticize, are generally hostile, discounting, disrespectful, nasty, or have a low EQ. 3. Two things are required for the barriers to the meeting of meanings to be overcome and for communication to take place, according to Reuel Howe: a) We must honor and learn to assume responsibility not only for our own, but also for our partner's, ontological concern, human beings' natural concern for their being, their physical and psychological survival and well-being. b)...We need to dialogue with our partner or mate, have a conversation that involves two human beings who not only "send" but also "receive," two centers of worth and dignity who care not only about being heard but also about truly hearing, each taking into account the ontological concern of both partners while working to allow their meanings to truly meet.I've loved the following words by Reuel Howe about The Miracle of Dialogue for fifty years or so, and I wish every one who cares about his or her relationships could be reminded of them every day:"Only through dialogue are we saved from enmity toward one another. Dialogue is to love, what blood is to the body...When dialogue stops, love dies and resentment is born. Only dialogue could restore a dead relationship. This is the miracle of dialogue."I highly recommend this book. --Rev. J. Roland Cole