Creating Emotional Word Pictures

Communication skills are among the most important acquisitions a person can make. Among these skills is the ability to create a word picture that taps into the life experience of the person with whom you are interacting. One must ascertain, of course, what some of those life experiences are and this is done by careful listening and observing the interests or recent experiences of the other.

An historic example of the skilful creation of a simple word picture that created an emotional response that focused the attention of this nation on our political stance vis-a-vis the Soviet Union during the Cold War was President Reagan’s use of the phrase ‘The evil empire.’ This was done at the time the movie ‘Star Wars’ was being seen by millions of Americans. The people of this country could immediately connect to what this phrase implied. It didn’t take a long speech to convey what he meant and he got America on his side. Of course, Nikita Khrushchev, premier of the Soviet Union, a couple of decades before did the same thing banging his shoe on the table before the leaders of nations.

Jesus’ use of parables created the same unforgettable mental images in the minds of many of the people he was trying to teach. Who could forget the prodigal son (or his offended brother or welcoming father)?

Among the most memorable and clarifying images in Christendom were created by C. S. Lewis, an author who has had a great influence upon me.

It would pay all of us to develop the skill of creating word pictures, analogies, or metaphors that activate an emotional reaction in our hearer that gets him/her ‘on the same page of music’ with us.

Working With Imperishable Materials

No, you were not a professional physician, yet you have kept more souls and bodies together than many a doctor.

No, you are not a gifted singer or great musician. But you have made hearts sing.

No, you have never won a Pulitzer Prize for literature. Yet you have given happy endings to thousands of stress-filled or otherwise unfulfilled days.

No, you have never preached a sermon in a great Conference Center or Tabernacle, but the little sermons and lessons you have taught with your wisdom and encouragement and example have kept many children and men and women on the right path and in hope.

Yes, you have worked with mediums of pencil and paint and bronze, but your greatest art and work has been with imperishable materials—the children of men, the greatest workmanship, also, of God.

Spiritual Experiences

My readership is of two types—those who have had a potentially life-altering spiritual experience(s) and those who have not. Among the second type are individuals of a further reductive subset: (1) those who think that there could be no such thing—that those who claim such experiences are deluded or deceivers; or (2) those who think such a thing may be possible, but because they have not had one (or have not recognized it or have forgotten it) that for whatever reason they feel it would be highly unlikely they have one now or again.

I would like to declare that legitimate spiritual experiences are possible and have happened to honest people, and that I have had them and further that they could be had by others. Usually, however, a price must be paid by the recipient.

I suppose one could actively pursue the extraordinary but I think it would be like capturing the ‘elusive butterfly’—possible but difficult and probably highly unlikely. The reason for this is that true spiritual experiences are not personal contrivances or given to satisfy idle curiosity but gifts given by a divine gift-giver. And, they are given in response to legitimate desire, motivation, or need or as a reward or blessing for righteous behavior.

Since I am a religious man I will tell you how spiritual religious experiences usually come . They come through prayer. They come through addressing your prayer to God, our Father. They come through faith in and in the name of Jesus Christ. If one does not have faith in Jesus Christ, a sincere desire to believe in and have faith in Christ will suffice.

First of all, realize that God, the giver of the experience is the judge of the need and intent of the potential recipient. Next, realize that the timing of the experience is on God’s timetable; it is given when it will best benefit the one in need. It may be immediate, but in my experience has more often been after a period of testing or proving or suffering.

There are a few things that can facilitate these blessings:

• Go to a place where you will not be distracted and that has a wholesome ambiance.
• Be clean physically and well groomed and dressed in simple, modest attire.
• Allow yourself time and don’t take a watch. The experience may not come in that hour or that day. It may take persistence on your part.
• Prepare yourself by appropriate reading, seeking, ridding yourself of other things that occupy your mind.
• Take a notebook or something to record your feelings afterward.
Recognize them when they come:
• Rid yourself of preconceived popular or Hollywood notions of what a spiritual experience should look like or feel like.
• Realize that most spiritual experiences are felt; they are not necessarily seen or heard.
• Know that others, in your presence, may not be experiencing what you are experiencing.

What is a spiritual experience?

• It is detected, not created by you.
• It persists. You will not easily or quickly forget it.
• It impels to action.
• It produces a sense of rightness and completeness.
• It is consistent with scriptural truths.
• Though it may have strange symbolic elements, it is not terrifying or gruesome.
• It is accompanied by a great sense of peace.

Gratitude for the experience and compliance with the direction that most spiritual experiences give tends to produce more. I suppose this is what is called ‘spirituality.’ It is a dimension to living that far too few have experienced. It is an experience that far more could have and would enrich their lives. I would encourage all to seek for spirituality.

Leaders in Hard Times?

As the world continues to stagger along with life-shattering troubles in Somalia, in London, in the stock markets of the world, in the Middle East, in our job market, in weather-generated catastrophes, etc., my wife and I talked today about hope and from where it derives. Although my hope is centered in Divine aid that, if we were worthy of it, I am convinced we could get, another place from where it derives is from political leadership. Being on the same wave-length, as we usually are, we both immediately thought of Winston Churchill and the type of leadership he demonstrated in the darkest days, for the British, of World War II.

What was the difference between the type of leadership Churchill demonstrated and the lack of leadership we see emanating from Washington D.C. in these dark days? As I reviewed mid-20th Century history in the West I could not find then the finger-pointing, bickering, posturing, take-a-vacation, type of ‘leadership’ we now see from our elected ‘leaders.’ What I did see, from Mr. Churchill especially, was down-in-the-trench, call-it-like-it-is, require-from-the-people sacrifice that everyone, from the ‘leaders’ down, would all need to make in their darkest hour.

What I haven’t heard from our ‘leaders’ in Washington is the request for the American people, as well as themselves, to make some specific sacrifices, for us to become involved in the great power that is latent in our democracy and to quit pretending that ‘government’ by these ‘leaders’ can solve all the problems we face. They have quite forgotten, it seems, as Abraham Lincoln said, that “this nation, under God…[is] of the people, by the people, and for the people.” The focus should be, as the Constitution says, “to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility…promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity….”

It is illuminating to contrast the focus of our ‘leaders’ to make their number one concern their own reelection with what the Prime Minister of England, this master statesman, said when the Western world was facing their darkest hour:

"I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat. We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many months of struggle and suffering.
You ask, what is our policy? I say it is to wage war by land, sea and air. War with all our might and with all the strength God has given us, and to wage war against a monstrous tyranny never surpassed in the dark and lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy.
You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word. It is victory. Victory at all costs—Victory in spite of all terrors—Victory, however long and hard the road may be, for without victory there is no survival."

A month later Mr. Churchill continued to encourage his people:

"I have, myself, full confidence that if all do their duty, if nothing is neglected…we shall prove ourselves once again able to defend our Island home, to ride out the storm….
We shall go on to the end…we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength…we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets…we shall never surrender, and even, if, which I do not for a moment believe, this Island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, …would carry on the struggle, until in God’s good time, the New World, with all its power and might , steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old."

And then, three weeks later this great man said this:

"I expect that the Battle of Britain is about to begin. Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilization. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves, that if the British Empire…last for a thousand years, men will still say, ‘This was their finest hour.’"

Seven years before, in our country, the president of the United States said this:

"This is pre-eminently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly. Nor need we shrink from honestly facing conditions in our country today. This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself – nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. In every dark hour of our national life a leadership of frankness and vigor has met with that understanding and support of the people themselves which is essential to victory."

Though I take issue with the political philosophy and policies of the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration, there is no question that the American people rallied to his type of leadership in the time when leadership was needed.

Harriet Beecher Stowe had it right when she said, “Half the misery in the world comes of want of courage to speak and to hear the truth plainly and in a spirit of love.”

Where are the leaders in this hard time for America and for the world? They don’t seem to have their offices in Washington D.C.

Fractured

In doing research for my doctoral dissertation (Character Education and the Development of Moral and Spiritual Values … Brigham Young University… [1984]) I read a 1978 address given at Harvard University by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn titled “A World Split Apart.” His address, and a book he wrote a few years before, “The Gulag Archipelago,” had a profound influence upon me. Now, thirty-three years later we are still a world split apart, we are still imprisoned—only in different ways. We are not split apart by communist or fascist totalitarianism, but we are split apart by other ideologies, by political loyalties, by religious beliefs, by unkept marriage vows and forgotten family hopes. We are imprisoned by selfishness.

When we have a broken limb we splint it, we cast it and protect it, we rest it; we don’t just automatically cut it off. Most of the time it will heal just fine. In the meantime, we do things for the person who is doing the work of trying to heal. We serve them, and when we do we come to love the object of our service.

In seeking for freedom, for expression of individual pleasures, for wealth, for ‘entitlements,’ we have lost our sense of unity, of ties that hold us together as ‘one nation, [or family] under God,’ indeed we have lost our connectedness as a human family. In fighting for our ‘position,’ or our distorted ‘identity’ we lose sight of the larger picture and our place in it.

We need to seek things that encourage our cohesiveness as families and as a nation and as a world community of people who have the same fears and aspirations, the same needs and hopes as we have. We are more similar than we are different. We all bleed when cut. We all can rest when the noise ceases and the cold is kept out, when we are fed, and we have some place to lay our head.

One thing that holds us together is our history—family history and national history. We need to learn it better. We cannot expect an individual or a family or a nation which has lost its memory to keep its vision. There may be rough brush strokes in what we paint of our families, there may be blemishes in our national history, but we are much more than the flaws—we are more good than bad. We must remember the good things and emphasize these things and hold out hope. And we must do this for others.

Things can get better; fractures can mend. Remember, “Faith, hope, [and] charity [all are needed]…but the greatest of these is charity.”