Picture by E>mar

I love stories. From ballads to books to movies and more, I love stories. Dinner time in my family’s house often centered around the stories of my father and his adventures in the FBI. Early on, I developed the habit of listening intently. While I love to talk, I love to listen as well. I never know what I might discover in the person across from me. Sometimes I fail to listen and I regret it. But those times when I hear, when I really hear and encounter another person: those times are rich and full of wonder.

Stories are grand. Stories are magical. Stories make me feel. They make me laugh and cry and experience the world. Sometimes they make me angry or sad. Stories tap something deep inside me that is often inexplicable. They move me.

And yet, stories can sometimes feel manipulative. I don’t like when I watch a movie and I feel like the filmmaker has underlined his main idea with a bright red marker. Suddenly the story is interrupted with his “message.” I have endured some interesting films even when the “moral” was slapping me in the face. Sometimes Christians can exercise the worst at this form of storytelling. We want to make sure everyone “gets it.”

So our stories and our movies and our personal “testimonies” focus on emphasizing, exaggerating the point. (And politicians run a pretty close second to us Christians in the “use” of stories.) Oddly, when the story becomes a vehicle, it loses a bit of the wonder. It may seem contrived. It may offend. It may come across as a bit hollow.

Years ago, I remember a politician using the story of his son to make a political point. The story came across as flat and the point a bit overbearing. The press let him know through their reports that the use of a deeply painful and personal story dehumanized him a bit as a leader.

And yet, it’s not necessarily bad to make a point with a story or to convey truth through a story. Storytelling plays a central role in Jesus’ pattern of ministry. I believe His stories, and oddly enough, I believe He is still speaking to me (us) in the stories. So you might call me a believer or a Christian. I believe that in His stories and speaking, there is an objective encounter with truth that goes beyond “idea” and is more directly related to “person.” At one point, Jesus says that it is the Spirit who draws people to Him.

He speaks and the Spirit of God is moving and through Him to open the eyes of the listening to hear the person standing in front of them. In other words, the objective truth is the person of Jesus (Word made Flesh). Thus He is speaking and embodying His story at the same time. Some people want to argue with him, but some actually adore Him.

With this in mind, I might suggest that a story is the gift of myself to another. Yes, there may be ideas or thoughts or insight that can be helpful, but the objective reality is one person standing in front of another person. When I hear a story, I am going out to encounter the person (as Martin Buber would say), I am not trying to take their story into myself, so I can experience it. For if that is all I do, I’ve reduced that person to some objective extension of myself and my own experience. But I might actual listen to the person. I might actually face the objective reality behind the story. I might actually encounter their “spirit” (the fullness of the person so to speak). And Buber went so far as to say that when I face the “thou” (person) before me, I might just face the “Eternal Person.” And when I encounter the person, I am changed.

This helps me to think about telling and listening to stories (whether in writing or in person or film or song or whatever). I may use a story to illustrate a point, but I must remember that I am speaking to real persons, I am encountering another person in my words. I give them the story as a gift of myself, and I hear their stories as a gift of their selves. It might help me to face people and listen to them (and not just their ideas).

I haven’t worked out all the implications of this in relation to preaching, politics, etc. And maybe I’ll write more as I think more about it. But for now I’ll pause with the idea that the truth I am getting to in story is person. And as a believer, I will add (alongside Martin Buber) that in all encounters there is freedom for another Person to address me and encounter me with the reality of His Unending Life.

This vitriolic exchange seems more pronounced on the web as bloggers and commenters discuss Dawkins, Harris, Falwell or Robertson. At Newsvine, Washington Post’s On Faith discussions, and a host of other places, I observe two angry groups lobbing verbal grenades back and forth. On occasion, there is a bit of kindness, but most of what I’ve read is lacking any true dialogue.

I long for the intellectually rigorous, yet highly entertaining debates between Chesterton and Shaw. While I’m waiting, it’s nice to know that some Christians and atheists have decided to put down their swords. A friend pointed me to this interesting article about Christians and atheists declaring a truce by listening and learning from one another. At least two books have resulted thus far from the discussion: Jim and Casper Go to Church and I Sold My Soul on Ebay: Faith through an Atheists Eyes.

I haven’t read either book so I can’t comment on them. As a Jesus fanatic myself, I am not much for fighting. I am simply trying to learn what it means to follow Him and proclaim Him. I think that has something to do with love…and a cross.

Update: Check out Jim Henderson’s Off the Map site and  Hemant Mehta’s Friendly Atheist site.

I’m not sure you can have true conversation without a face to face encounter, but at least there is some discussion. And some of it is even civil. My real hope is that something like this could happen out in the office, the home, the market, the community. In other words, where people from differing backgrounds could talk, listen and actually face one another. Some of the internet bravado might disappear and few people might actually enter into a real person to person dialogue.

Another key interest in my life has been community/relationship building. That’s why I track social networks and trends in culture. I am interested in how these trends online and offline will impact the formation of relationships. I’ve had the privilege of bringing this interest in community building into several companies, but the focus has primarily been within a company not between the company and their outside stakeholders (customers, vendors, et al).

So I’ve tried to find connecting points between this interest and the company I’ve been working with most recently: Jewelry Television. We’re making some baby steps toward community/social networking. They recently gave approval for me to start a Jewelry Television blog. It’s very low radar right now. We’ve not promoted or mentioned it much at all.

This is still an ongoing experiment. While I want the blog to direct people to our site (so I post ads and videos from the site), I also want to blog to reveal the human side of the company and open the door for conversation with customers. Eventually, it is a step toward building a more socialnet based dialogue between JTV and customers as well as other folks online.

Take a look at it, if you have chance and give me any feedback. I’d appreciate it.

All real living is meeting. – Martin Buber

I could write a few paragraphs of commentary or I could simply let it stand and encourage you to think about that for a little while today. Good words.

My biggest problem is the feeling that I don’t fit in either camp: Republicans or Democrats; conservatives or liberals. Growing up in East TN, I found my home among the Republicans and enthusiastically joined the College Republicans in the early 80s.

When I left college, I ministered at an Inner City church among the homeless and weakest members of our society. Many of my ideals were challenged.

I am still strongly pro-life, but I’ve tried to understand how that applies across the board: from birth to death (including death penalty, war, childcare, aging care, immigration and more). For me pro-life means being pro-person and trying understand how valuing each person should affect the way I view this world. This makes me feel disconnected from both parties, and yet at times finding points of agreement with either group.

Over the years, I’ve developed friendships with people from all walks of life and political (and/or non-political) persuasions. By practicing Buber’s idea of facing people and really listening, I find myself less willing to entrench myself in certain ideas.

This also makes me listen to competing views and honestly try to think through difficult issues like the Iraq war and other issues. As I listen, wrestle, discuss and even argue at times, I often find myself in that “undecided” black hole because these issues are never as simple as the pundits preach.

The current political landscape is tired and self-serving. So people like me struggle to wonder the value of even voting.

I don’t normally mention politics here simply because our culture has moved far beyond any form of reasoned discourse or proper rhetoric. I think many of us Americans are not on the fringe waiting and wanting to virtually crucify the “other guy.”

There are real problems in our world and real disagreements as to how to solve those problems. If we could ever learn to listen and really dialogue (Martin Buber), we might actually find places of wisdom that teach us to avoid killing each other (virtually or literally).

The rest of the article lays out a few tips for listening to customers, gathering information and applying it. I appreciate this current focus on customer centrism and usually try to follow what people are saying about it. The trend toward customers seems like a good thing.

Especially if is for real.

Listening is an art. If I listen to a customer just to figure out a plan for the best way to manipulate them to purchase my goods, I may not listen for long. Or they may not speak for long.

Granted most of us listen to other people for selfish reasons. It is hard to listen for the sake of listening. This is challenge of turning and facing another person in all their ambiguity; valuing them as unique person; and listening to what they say (without immediately figuring out how to use or retort it). Our culture has little time or capacity for really listening, but if we learned it, it might change our lives.

Can this kind of listening work in business? It depends on the business model. Does the business exist for pure profit? Or are there other reasons? Under some models, a company might be willing to lose some profit if it means listening and responding to some genuine customer concerns. Then this stuff becomes real.

Otherwise it is just a means to end. Another method to ultimately use another for our own ends. If we practice this in business, I’m not sure we can turn it off when we go home.

I have a silly idea (maybe its purely eschatalogical), but I believe there could be another kind of commerce. Commerce is good because it involves exchange, thus presupposing relationship at some level. So could there be a commerce of love? And could it happen on this planet in this age?

I guess this why I’m a bad blogger. Too much writing and not enough linking! So I’ll stop.