Communication

Communication is the hardest job in the world. When a thought comes to you, you have an image in your mind. You crystallize that image in a word; when you say that word, you expect that the one who listens to you will have the same image in his mind, or in her mind. But sometimes they don’t!

A very young teacher, just graduated from college, was hired by a Catholic school for the kindergarten. She was very happy with her babies. At the end of each day, she would tell them a story from the Gospel. And one day she was telling them the Christmas story.

When she began to describe the slaughter of the innocents, she got carried away. She had the Roman soldiers going down to Bethlehem, tearing the babies out of the arms of their mothers, and putting the blade of their swords into the belly of the baby–and then the bell rang. It was four in the afternoon, the close of school.

She looked down, and all her little girls were sobbing, in tears. Her little boys were white, and trembling. She thought: "Oh, my Lord! They will not sleep tonight. They will have nightmares." She wanted to soften the story, but the bell had already rung.

So she said; "Alright! Now, for homework tonight, I want you to draw me a picture of the flight into Egypt." She thought that would do it. The road, the trees, Joseph with his staff, the Virgin Mary on the donkey, holding the Baby Jesus.

So the children went home, and did their homework. They drew a picture of the flight into Egypt, very carefully. And in the morning they handed in their homework, proudly. When the teacher looked at the pictures, she was startled.

What she got was the Virgin Vary going down to the International Airport, and buying a ticket for Flight 307, for Egypt. And then she had many pictures of the flight: Mary sitting in the plane, holding the Child, and Joseph sitting beside her.

One little five-year old did it like a cartoon. She had tags for each person, with their names on the tag. Joseph, Mary, Jesus. And she even had a pilot for the plane! And a name for the pilot. His name was "Punches."

She was a real scripture scholar. She learned, of course, by ear – from what the adults told her. And this was what she heard her Mommy saying every night, when they said the Family Rosary: "Born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Punches Pilot. "It fitted what she learned in school. The Baby was born in Bethlehem, but Herod sent the soldiers to kill all the baby boys, so Joseph and Mary took the flight into Egypt, and on that flight Jesus was suffering, under Punches, the Pilot.

A little four-year old came into the kitchen where his mother was trying to cook supper, with his friend, who was three. He pulled on her skirt, and said: "Mommy, say that prayer for him – the one about the monkey." The mother looked down at him and said: "I don’t think I know any prayer about a monkey." The boy protested, saying: "Mommy! You say it all the time! The prayer about the monkey! The monkey, swimmin’!" The mother said: I don’t think I know any prayer about a monkey, swimmin’ "

The three-year old said to her son: "There I told you! I told you she wouldn’t know any prayer about a monkey!" So the little boy went out with his friend, because he said his Mommy knew a prayer about a monkey, and she didn’t.

But that night, when the Mommy was saying the rosary, the little boy said: "That’s it! The monkey! The monkey, swimmin’" What the mother was saying was: "Hail Marry, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou amongst women. . . . Amongst women. What the little boy heard was "monkey swimmin’" that was the image in his mind. The monkey swimming down the river. He loved that prayer about the monkey.

A little girl, in Grade Three, came to her teacher, very seriously, with the question: "Miss, what is the color of Tuesday?" The teacher swallowed, and said, as gently as she could: "Honey, I don’t think there is any color for Tuesday. The child protested, saying: "Miss, it has to have a color! We have Black Saturday. And we have White Sunday. And Monday is always Blue! What color is Tuesday?"

It even happens to me. I was attending a meeting in the Ateneo Compound, at Loyola Heights. One of the secretaries, working at the E.A.P.I., asked if she could come back with me to Santa Ana, after the meeting, "because it is so hard to get from here to downtown by public transportation".

The meeting took longer than I expected. I ran up to her office. She was typing, furiously. I said; "Let’s go!" She looked at me, in distress, looked at her typewriter, looked at me again, and said: "I am not ready yet. You better go. . "I said: "okay" And I went.

The next morning she saw me in my office. She said: "I am sorry about what happened last night. After you went, I burst into tears, because of what you did. The staff heard me crying, and tried to console me, but they couldn’t. I cried for a long time, because of what you did." I said, in innocence: "What did I do?" She said: "I said to you: ‘You better go!’" and you went!"

This is the Filipina, talking. She said to me: "You better go." But the message she was delivering, by body language, was: "Wait for me!" Me – dumb American – I heard the words, and I went.

Communication is the hardest thing in the world!