The great George Washington Carver was an early 20th century, African American scientist and inventor. A former slave, he felt the sting of prejudice and hatred like few today can understand. Oftentimes people would ask him to reveal the name of the University which had accepted him, only to retract his admittance after discovering that he was a Negro. Carver consistently refused to tell, passing it off as an incident of little importance.
According to E. Stanley Jones, “He had what somebody called ‘the peace that passeth not only all understanding, but all misunderstanding.’”
“And whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses” (Mark 11:25, ESV).
Cartha Deloach served as J. Edgar Hoover's assistant at the FBI from 1965 to 1970. He tells a humorous story sharing insight into Hoover's quirky personality, as well as exposing the power of misunderstanding and ambiguous communication:
One day a memo on internal security that had been sent up to Hoover came back with a message in the familiar scrawl: "Watch the borders! H." Telephones began to ring all over the building, everyone asking the same question: "Is there anything going on in Mexico or Canada we should know about?" "Maybe we ought to call the Immigration and Naturalization Service." Somebody said, "Why don't you just ask Hoover what he knows that we don't know?" But no one wanted to show his ignorance. So we called Customs and they didn't know any more than we did.
Several days later a supervisor was again reviewing the memo when the answer to the question jumped out and smacked him in the face. The memo had been typed with the narrowest possible margins. Hoover, always fastidious, had picked up his pen and in annoyance had scrawled, "Watch the borders!"
This is a textbook study in the proverbial "Why ask when you can assume" response to questionable or suspect information. Whether out of fear, arrogance, or just plain laziness, we love to take a little bit of information and weave it into an entire story, with a life of its own. It's the very problem at the heart of such common communication traps as gossip and heresy. The amount of energy it takes to go straight to the source and clarify communication is but a fraction of what it takes to clean up the mess of misunderstanding.
"For lack of wood the fire goes out, and where there is no whisperer, quarreling ceases" (Proverbs 26:20, ESV).
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Have you ever felt misunderstood? So has this READER'S DIGEST contributor:
Searching the library for two books by communications expert Deborah Tannen turned into an Abbott and Costello comedy routine.
"What's the first book?" the librarian asked.
"That's Not What I Meant," I said.
"Well, what did you meant?"
"That's the title of the book," I explained.
"Okay," she said, looking at me a little skeptically. "And the other book?"
"You Just Don't Understand."
"Excuse me?"
I got both books. Eventually.
When it comes to clear communication, even the experts can have trouble. Don't give up! Hang in there. Work through it. Communication is key to a healthy relationship. And remember in the process, it is more important to understand than to be understood.
"A fool takes no pleasure in understanding, but only in expressing his opinion" (Proverbs 18:2).
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