Communication

They say that when Johnny Cash played a concert, he could step up to the microphone, play one chord, and his band immediately knew what song he wanted to do next. Considering the fact that Mr. Cash knew a lot more songs than he knew chords, I have to believe that, at the very least, there was more to it than the chord. Personally, I suspect that he probably worked out a list of songs before each concert, so that they all knew what they were going to play. Maybe he included a few choices along the way, and he had some secret signal to let the band know about that (and maybe it even was the chord, or perhaps the way he played the chord…).

Sometimes we fall into the trap of thinking that we know what someone else is thinking, or that everyone else knows what we are thinking. Some people actually have a gift of insight, and they have a better understanding of what people around them are thinking. This still isn’t mind-reading so much as it is being alert to visual cues, such as posture, gestures, and even eye movement. Sometimes picking up on visual, or auditory, cues has to do with another talent. For example, the music department at our church knows quite a number of different songs, and each song has a unique introduction. The people in our music department only need a few notes to know what song is starting. We have a projector and a screen to project lyrics to the songs, so that the congregation can sing along without hymnals. Unfortunately, the guy running the projector is not a musician, and has a hard time identifying a song just by its introduction. The musicians all feel that he should be able to recognize songs as easily as they do, and don’t understand the importance of communicating to him what they are doing. It’s obvious to all of them, so they naturally figure that it’s obvious to everyone else. Not everyone has that kind of musical gift, though.

The Bible says to communicate. Just because something is obvious to you, it doesn’t necessarily follow that everyone else knows about it. We also had a woman at our church get upset that no one came to visit her when she was in the hospital. Pastor was very surprised to learn that she had been in the hospital. “Who did you tell?” he asked her. She was very surprised to find out that she was supposed to tell some one; she seemed to think that everyone else should have known. That’s a pretty extreme example, but, we, as human beings, often get the idea that everyone else knows (or that no one else cares) so there isn’t any need to talk about it.