Posted on: Saturday, November 13, 2004

EXPRESSIONS OF FAITH
Less shouting, more listening will help us get along

By The Rev. Alison M. Dingley

After the election, pundits have been making much of the division in the country — between red states and blue states, liberals and conservatives. The division is real. We believe different things about God and moral values, about what is important to the country, about family life.

I believe disunity is an offense to God. If God is one, and if God created humanity in the divine image, then we are all related and need to find some way to get along.

The divisions in our country are aggravated because we do not listen to one another. We watch and listen to news that feeds our biases. We read online sources that thrive on division. We talk with people who agree with us and avoid serious conversations with people who see things differently.

The truth is that more unites us than divide us. Most of us, as measured by polls, want to provide for the needs of the poor, care for the environment, have stable family lives and be respected by the rest of the world. However, all of those have become issues of division.

In the Episcopal Church and Anglican Communion we are working hard at figuring out how to be together in spite of serious disagreements about homosexuality, authority and theology. We are doing that by praying together and talking together.

Increasingly in the media, talking together has been replaced by shouting at each other. We cannot resolve our conflicts if we do not listen to each other. Neither side of our conflicts is going to win, but if we can really talk together and hear each other then we can be led by the spirit of truth to new truths.

In the Diocese of Hawai'i we are using "Respectful Communication Guidelines" developed by the Rev. Eric Law of the Diocese of Los Angeles to help us share, learn and grow together. They are:

R: take RESPONSIBILITY for what you say and feel without blaming others.

E: use EMPATHIC listening.

S: be SENSITIVE to differences in communications styles.

P: PONDER on what you hear and feel before you speak.

E: EXAMINE your own assumptions and perceptions.

C: keep CONFIDENTIALITY.

T: TRUST ambiguity because we are NOT here to debate who is right or wrong.

If we could all follow those guidelines instead of emulating the talking/shouting heads, we could begin to hear each other. We might discover that we are concerned about much the same things.

Who knows? We might even learn something from each other.

The Rev. Alison M. Dingley is the priest in charge of St. Stephen's Episcopal Church in Wahiawa.