Dialogue for the couples

 

Dialogue: the Path to be happy couples 

 ADRIAN B SMITH, M.Afr

The most frequent and at the same time the most superficial I call the neutral level.  It might equally be called the business level.  We relate to people, not because they are this or that person but because of their roles, because they can provide us with out needs.  Our only reason for relating to them is to achieve a task, as for instance, any communication we might have with the girl at the checkout of the Supermarket. This is the hai and bye relationship. Its a natural way of  dialogue for the business relationship. It would not help the couples to come closer at any cost. 

 

At the next level communication is at least between persons as persons, but it is still superficial.  We might describe it as an exterior exchange.  It is the sort of conversation that takes place at a party. This method wont fit for the couples because its a particular time of conversation.  The  dinning-room: It is a social exchange.  We chat about the day’s news, the weather: all very safe topics because we give away nothing of ourselves or our feelings.

Among close friends a deeper or interior communication is possible.  It is more personal.  We are able to share opinions and feelings because trust has been established.  We are getting to know the person and allowing her/him to get to know us rather than just to know about us.   Although we are prepared to take some risks in exposing ourselves at this level, there are still some no-go areas. It is the beginning stage for the couple to have a confident enough to start a dialogue. 

The next is the intimate or deepest level and this is only possible between a few very close friends.  We give and receive as we are.  We feel free to express our joy, our anger, our sorrow.  We can weep with them and know they will think no less of us.  We feel safe in their company to be our real selves.  We do not have to pretend with them that we are other than we are.  This is the most beneficial context for personal growth.  Between people at this lever there is a deep communication in which few words are necessary.  There is no embarrassment in long periods of silence. In this method would help the couples to express their feeling this would help them to grow better as the couples. 

 

Finally, of course, there is the level of our communication with God in which nothing is hidden.  It is the union of the core of my being with the core of God’s being.  

 

 Feeling expressed through dialogue 

The most useful word for understanding human communication is ‘Dialogue’.  When speaking on this subject I have often asked the audience what comes to mind when they hear that word.  They come up with: conversation, Two people, Sharing, Discussion, Listening, Speech, Agreement, Acceptance.  Nowhere have I found a better description that that in the Letter to the Ephesians: ‘Speaking the truth in love’ (Eph.4:15).  But this needs a bit of unpacking. 

In order to be authentic, one must be able to trust one’s interlocutors. This allows one to put away one’s masks. The one who knows that he / she is allowed to express his / her true sentiments, and, even more, is aware that his / her sentiments are accepted and respected, feels welcomed, understood and consoled.

Authenticity is the first condition for dialogue; the second is listening. For want of these conditions, many conversations do not reach beyond the level of parallel monologues without audience. When the persons in conversations are concerned with what they have to say rather than listening to the other, mutual understanding becomes difficult.

 

In dialogue, one has to be specific. It means to be concrete and to limit oneself to responding to what the other says or wants to say. Mixing up issues and dragging in matters unrelated to the point are illogical, dishonest and unproductive ways of dialoguing. Discuss directly and frankly all and only what the original theme of discussion requires.

 

In good communication, concrete replies, and not vague and evasive ones, are important. Since such replies may confront the inconsistencies and contradictions in the other, one should take care not to hurt the other. The best things said badly have only a bad effect. Confronting should not be done with a view to defeat, humiliate or even accuse the other. It should be an exercise of charity, to help the other to overcome a crisis, to correct a mistake, to have the right understanding or attitude, and to put him or her on the right track.

 

It is within our nature as human beings to seek truth.  But truth (like goodness, love, beauty, life, reality, freedom, etc) is an absolute value, different from relative values such as civil laws, cultural traditions, the Highway Code, which change according to needs and circumstances.  Absolute values possess an element of the divine and therefore they are beyond being fully comprehended by us.   We can only deal with them partially, one aspect at a time.  In the case of truth, we can handle it only in the form of truths, but even here we suffer from the limitations of our thought patterns, our way of reasoning, our past experiences, our education, our beliefs, etc.  When we attempt to communicate our understanding of truths to others we are faced with even more limitations because we are dependent upon words.  Among the barriers to pure communication are the changing value of words, the cultural experience and formal education of each person, their psychology, their loves, hates and fears as well as the level of relationship that exists between the communicators.   Word are symbols of symbols and therefore twice removed from reality.

 

Speaking the truth ‘in love’ implies wishing for each other’s growth.  This concerns the attitude, the willingness with which we enter into dialogue.  We have to be prepared to accept others without any conditions, allowing them the freedom to be themselves.  Accepting their gifts, their prejudices, their way of relating and communicating, their wounds, their failures and their masks, but always believing in their sincerity, their honesty, their desire for truth, their goodness.  It means listening respectfully, leaving them the freedom and space ‘not to say’, avoiding interpreting,  solving, judging, prying.  A loving attitude to dialogue also means accepting myself and asking the other to accept me as someone different.  It demands that I share who I am, not just at the level of ideas.  It means sharing without any attempt to change the other or to win the other over to my point of view.  It requires that I choose the appropriate language, gesture and moment.  In this exchange I take a risk.  It is a risk to be my real self, to lower my mask, to lose my feeling of superiority or inferiority.  I risk feeling rejected, misunderstood.  Above all, I risk hearing God speak to me through the other and allowing God to speak to the other through me.

 

GOD’S DIALOGUE OF SALVATION

 

Our mode must be the manner of God’s dialogue with us.  Pope Paul VI wrote beautifully about this in his first encyclical letter, Ecclesiam suam, in 1964.  The third part is all about dialogue, but numbers 70-77 are devoted to what he calls ‘The dialogue of Salvation’.  He writes: ’The whole history of the salvation of humanity is one long varied dialogue, which marvelously begins with God and which he prolongs with men and women in so many different ways.’  Pope Paul then goes on to propose that God’s dialogue with us is the model for our dialogue with each other.  It is not measured by results or by whether the other party deserves it; the dialogue of salvation is never imposed on us, nor are we forced to accept it.  We are offered it with great delicacy.  No one is excluded from it.  As God takes the initiative, and indeed risk, in dialoguing with us, so we have to take the initiative and risk in opening dialogue with others.

 

FIVE FORMS OF DIALOGUES

 

In order to enter into Dialogue as a tool for community building we need some form in which to practice it.  Here are five exercises that can be used in community.  Each takes the group to a deeper lever so it is important that we only journey on to the next when we all feel comfortable with the present level.

 

SHARED PRAYER:  This is something, which most religious have experienced, at least occasionally if it is not a regular community practice.  Through it we enter into a new dimension of relationship with others because we reveal something of our inner selves.  We do not gather to recite prayers but to pray from our hearts as we feel inspired.  We share in this prayer as much by accepting the prayers of another as by praying aloud ourselves.  We are allowing the Holy Spirit to speak to us through another person.  It is active listening.  The best example we have is in the way Jesus opened his heart to his Father in prayer during the Last Supper in the presence of his closest friends.  In these sessions we can feel comfortable with periods of silence.

 

COMMUNICATION OF LIFE:  There is so much around us that communicate death and negativity that this is an exercise in which we can be life-giving to one another.  We share how each is experiencing life at this point in time: our joys, worries, sadnesses, encouragements.  What we are sharing is the common fund of human experience that the community experiences right now.  Our listening to each other is respectful, not judgmental.  We do not enter into discussion, still less do we express a contrary view.  It calls for trust in each other’s good will.  And of course it presumes the confidentiality of the group: what is said goes not further than the group.  In receiving this communication we are receiving these persons --- through their body language as well as through their words.  The communication will become deeper as trust deepens and the community matures.

 

It is often good to launch this sharing around a particular theme or question.  It might be as simple as: ‘How do you feel as a member of this community at this moment? (Note that any response that begins ‘I feel that……..’ is not the expression of a feeling but of a thought!)  We receive people as they are: this is not a time for offering consolation or advice.   Needless to say, plenty of time should be allowed for such sessions.  Nothing is more cramping than pressure to finish before the clock strikes.

 

REVISION OF OUR WORK:  Since we are people with a common apostolate this form of dialogue should not be infrequent.  But nor is it to be confused with the regular house council at which the practicalities of the community are discussed.   It matters not whether the whole group has the same apostolate or whether each member’s is different.  There is a constant need to evaluate what we are doing: to take a fresh look at what we are achieving—or are not achieving! ---and ask why.  Besides being an occasion for replanning it allows a clarification of and sharing upon the different visions that the group might hold.  It makes room for the gifts and charisms of each.  We have to ensure that the common good is our yard-stick for decisions.  This demands that we each have the courage to give up personal whims and hobby-horses.  A useful way of proceeding is to use the See Judge, Act method of the YCW.

 

REVISION OF OUR COMMUNITY LIFE:  This is similar to the above except that it concerns the internal life of the group.  How easy it is for each one and the whole group to get into a rut, despite the frequent changes of circumstances and personnel.  But it is almost impossible for a community to exercise this level of dialogue unless members feel at home with the previous exercises.  It calls for great delicacy and sensitivity.  It provides a chance to deal with some of those hidden agendas.

MUTUAL SUPPORT AND ENCOURAGEMENT:  This is the most difficult but the most fruitful lever of dialogue.  It is not to be confused with fraternal or sororal correction which some of us were introduced to in the novitiate.  That was given one-to-one and was usually negative.  Here it is the community helping each individual to grow so that the community can become richer and more effective.  The group challenges the individual members to recognize the gifts they do not realize or acknowledge they possess.   Gifts and talents are given to each one for everyone’s benefit.  This form of dialogue is undertaken only if each individual in the community is open to it.  Otherwise it might wound and hurt, whereas it is meant to be healing and loving.  We mostly only come to know ourselves through the eyes of others and only when the others have loving eyes and hearts.

 

 

     

 

      A WAY OF LIFE

 

We have to face the fact that there are very few communities, which will achieve the deeper levels of dialogue, however desirable that may be.  There are practical difficulties to be faced.  There is the good will needed to agree on a time and rhythm for meetings: to give them a priority.  There is the fact that religious communities are not composed of like-minded people who have chosen to live with each other.  Few communities exist in the same composition for very long: there are comings and goings and each new arrival means a step back to pick up the new-comer.  There can often be the one or two members who simply do not feel comfortable in taking part—for whatever reason.  Their feelings too have to be respected.  The presence of a reluctant participant can hold back the process and suppress true openness and trust.  But not should we allow one person to block the way forward for the others by preventing their meeting for dialogue.  We have always to decide: What is best for the common good?  It is in the spirit of dialogue that we have to face these difficulties.

What I have offered here are techniques, particular ways forward.  But in reality dialogue is not simply a technique or an exercise.  It is an attitude of mind, a way of life.  Without it, can we truthfully call our apostolic groups ‘communities’”  in the Gospel sense of the word? 

 This could be applied to the couples to have a dialogue for their happy family living. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

EXAMINING OUR PERFORMANCE

 

At the end of a dialogue session in community it is helpful for each participant to reflect upon the event with questions such as these:

 

      Have I helped to create a climate in which dialogue can happen?

 

Have I listened to each person (not just to their words) with heart as well as ears

 

Can I distinguish between sharing knowledge, ideas, and sharing the truth of who I am?

 

Have I carried on a monologue or dominated the group?

If others dominate, do I love them enough to tell them? in the group? Alone? Speaking the truth in love).

 

Have I heard but not listened---been preparing what I wanted to say while others spoke?

 

Have I singled out anyone in the group, forcing that person to speak or to feel uncomfortable for not wanting to speak?

 

Am I aware that I can contribute positively to a group by active listening?

 

Have I deliberately not contributed when I could have?  Why?

What other difficulties am I experiencing that could help the group?