Conversation Point

In This Moment

Cross-Cultural Communication

The residents of West Milford, New Jersey, have an amazing story to tell tonight, a story of heroic proportions that will not soon be forgotten. For it was reported today that Jack, the fifteen pound orange and white tabby cat treed a bear in his own back yard. Twice. At first Jack's owner, seeing the cat sitting on the ground staring up at the bear, assumed Jack had simply discovered the bear. Bears aren't uncommon in this wooded area of Northern New Jersey. But as it turned out, the bear was afraid of the hissing cat. After coming down from the first tree, the bear, in the process of running away from the cat, climbed another tree. "He doesn't want anybody in his yard," explained Jack's owner.

Clearly.

My own three indoor cats have a fairly placid relationship with the creatures who come and go through our yard. Several neighborhood cats come to sit outside the back door of our house while my cats sit inside on the other side of the glass. Everybody stares at each other and are gracious to include me when I walk over to see what's up. I feel honored. Cats are pretty fussy about who they hang out with. Most of being with them is understanding them, and accepting them for who they are and what they have to offer. Dogs are geared to please their owners as the leader of the pack, but cats have a different agenda. Cats wake up ready to pursue their bliss and please themselves. Accept that, and everything else about them falls into place. If a cat is in your home with you it is because they want to be there, they enjoy your company and they respect you as worthy of being in their presence. If that doesn't make sense to you, or you think no animal has the right to commandeer your home, you are missing the point - and a glorious opportunity to understand an incredibly wonderful part of God's love for us.

Consider that before Jesus' arrest he spoke to his disciples about how he would be with them after his death. "When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who comes from the Father, he will testify on my behalf. You also are to testify because you have been with me from the beginning (John 15: 26-27)." The disciples did their best to hear and understand what Jesus was telling them, but they were baffled by his words and blinded by their own hopes for the future. Three years of recreating their lives around Jesus' message had not come without a price. It he was now saying he was giving up or running away, which seemed incomprehensible, how could they even grasp that Jesus was forecasting his own death? Despite having grown up in the same culture, despite having been Jesus' closest followers, the disciples were hearing the words come out of Jesus' mouth and were not understanding a word he was saying. None of us would have done much better under the circumstances. Hindsight is theoretically 20/20, but we still struggle to discern and live Jesus' message today.

How the Advocate would come was never discussed, or at least never recorded until Pentecost came as a flame on the wind and the tongues of the people gathered that day. "When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filed with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave the ability. Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each (Acts 2:1-6)."

Amazing, isn't it, that in this incredible, joyful celebration of God's Spirit literally blowing among these people, not one of them was asked to give up who they were to be able to hear and understand each other. All they had to do was be there, to speak, and to listen. God's Spirit, the Advocate, worked the crowd and united them and their communication. They didn't lose their identities in their speaking or their hearing. They were able to hear everybody speaking to them in their own languages. No communication issues. No language barriers. No reasons not to understand what the people around them were saying, or to wonder if they themselves were being understood. Reflecting for a moment on the fact that we now refer to Pentecost as the birthday of the Christian church, we can, I believe, look upon these amazing gifts of acceptance and communication as two of God's greatest gifts to all of us.

I don't believe, though, that we have used these gifts all that well. We waste a lot of time as Christians thinking we are supposed to fit preconceived notions of what people of faith are like. Apparently we all think, act, speak, dress, worship and vote exactly the same way. No variations, no thought process and by that definition, no personality. So much for calling God the Great Creator because if that's all God can come up with in terms of human beings, best to go back and start over. Well, we aren't all the same and, in fact are pretty interesting if we want to invest some effort in figuring that out. And, owing to the fact that we have that responsibility to love and accept ourselves as God created us, Pentecost also reminds us we have an equal responsibility to open the gift of mutual respect for each of God's other human creations, including in how we communicate with each other. Especially in how we communicate with each other. Which brings us to Pentecost as one of those big reminders God has given us to remember the two greatest commandments, to love God, and to love each other as we love ourselves.

Which brings us back to cats. Once you accept cats for what they are, not for what you want them to be, you can hear what they are saying. It's all pretty easy after that, especially when you realize that is all they wanted from you, and what they wanted to give you in return, in the first place.

God's blessings, Cory

posted by Cory L. Kemp @ 4:26 PM