Conversations/Communication

[Anonymous]

My topic isn’t entirely new, however, I hope my point is a fresh thought.

Over the past months, and this past few days, the struggle to understand who understands what is front and center. In the years of my faith transition we have discussed if the guys at the top really understand the struggles or questions many people are dealing with. I am not certain we have a consensus on that, but an event in my life threw a shred of possibility on it.

I have a college age daughter. She chose to remain local and not head the One True University. I am totally fine with that. When I was young I did the same and have no regrets. Every once in a while she tells me about people or conversations or social things going on. The other day she was telling me about a phone app for hooking up for one night stands. I guess it’s a huge rage in her age group right now. Those one night stands are sexually related and everyone is loving it.

I did listen to her when she told me. I made eye contact, nodded my head, and said, “That is tough to work with.” I meant that or so I thought I did. A few days later we had to share a car, because of our schedule I had the privilege of hanging out on campus and watching/hearing/comprehending the totality of her life. I haven’t raised a prude and we are not deeply conservative but the shock of “getting” what she was living around all day really took me back. I suddenly realized how dismissive I had been the previous week. As we drove home I worked to make amends.

That experience reminded me of another moms experience. She had been asked to help with grad party for her sons senior class. During one of the preparation days the topic turned to, “What I got my kid for graduation.” Around the room the comments came in, “3 days at a beach house with friends”, “cruise”, “a week long trip to Disneyland”, etc. As the conversation began to wind its way to her, she panicked. She felt peer pressure, ashamed, desperate. Their son was getting a camera or watch. In that instance she remembered how many times when he had begged to have what other kids had, she told him – sincerely – with good intent – that he didn’t need this or that. That he had enough, that we shouldn’t be like everyone else and so on. There in that gymnasium she realized she really hadn’t heard him. She was distant from his daily struggle and pain. She really felt that her advice and choice was the right answer – yet when the emotions were upon her – her adages to him became thoughtless platitudes.

I don’t want to imply that leaders aren’t trying to listen. I am not implying that they are being deliberately dismissive. But I wonder if the communication gap is as real as the two examples above? Do they think they hear and yet can’t – until they have really walked in those moccasins. If so how can we who hurt and want to help – what can we do? Is there anything at all? Or is it a stalemate of time?

[Anonymous]

I think your examples are excellent – and I think they highlight why it’s dangerous to get outraged over what we might see as a disconnect on the part of someone else without realizing how disconnected we also are from so many people, including those whom we criticize for being disconnected to us.

I don’t have an easy answer, but I know it’s important to try to be connected, as much as possible, to people in very different circumstances – and to listen, very carefully with an attempt at respectful understanding, to those who are closest to us. To the extent that our own lives / spheres of interaction are relatively homogenous, we must be very careful of charges that others lack connection – especially people who actually do have broader spheres of interaction that we might.

[Anonymous]

I have felt their disconnect in my own life. The way the church tends to ostractize non-member family on the day of a sole member’s temple wedding shows one huge disconnect. I think Uchdorft has some understanding based on his talks. His admission that leaders make mistakes, the disavowal of the priesthood band and its doctrinal reasons (no one will ever convince me they were “theories”). i think attitudes of even local leaders I have seen show a huge disconnect. i won’t share examples, but they I have lots.

And I have to confess, at times I, as a priesthood leader have had a huge disconnect with the needs of my own followers. I remember once trying to counsel a family (financial) who had a mother at home with Alzheimers. The “head of the household” kindly asked me if I’d ever lived with a person who had the disease before. I said “no” — at which point he patiently educated me on some of the problems. They went well beyond forgetting, to problems with fecal cleanliness, incontinence, and other factors. Our old Bishop had to do the same thing when I was ratehr harsh with a family that didn’t want to look after their parent who had had a stroke. My Bishop explained what was involved in caring for someone who had suffered from a stroke, and I saw how it was too simplistic to simply expect the family to care for the person.

So, I think disconnects exist at all levels. We tend to understand other people’s lives from the limited range of our own life experience. It wouldn’t surprise me if church leaders are equally myopic. However, I would expect, in GOD’S CHURCH, that they would have superior insights, and if they lack such insight, would have the smarts and resources to find out how people they don’t immediately understand, think and feel.

Many church policies have the feel of a mechanistic, unfeeling bureaucracy that ignores individualism and even people who are out of the norm. Like us.

[Author]

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