YOU TALKIN’ TO ME?
A few weeks ago, I was scheduled to meet a new patient, a lady with advanced dementia who lives in a memory-care facility.
I called her daughter beforehand to see if she was able to be there for this introduction, and/or if she could give me a little background information about her mom. The daughter wasn’t available to meet in person, but she gave me the go-ahead to visit on my own. She told me, “She won’t understand who you are but she’ll be happy to see you. She’s a Methodist.” I replied, “Great, I speak Methodist.”
Thinking about this framing, later, I really dig it. The idea of religion and spirituality as a language:
Methodist was my first language, actually; it’s what we spoke at home when I was growing up. Now, mostly, I speak Agnostic. I’m also fluent in New Thought and Atheist, though when I communicate in the latter, the inflection always sounds a little off to my own ears. I’ve picked up quite a bit of Roman Catholic along the way, but I’ve never really studied it and my vocabulary is limited. Sometimes people say I sound Buddhist. I understand Judaism pretty well, but I have no idea how the conjugations work. I recognize a few words of Jainism and Shinto. And I’ve got a little conversational Hinduism, but my pronunciation isn’t great, and what I know may be mostly regional slang.
Maybe this could apply to any and all beliefs and perspectives — all the different ways that we attempt to express ourselves and connect with each other — technological, political, spiritual, social, professional, cultural.
It might be helpful to remember that while language certainly can help to draw us together in mutual understanding, there are always limitations. We need to be mindful of the potential for misunderstanding, our own tendencies to jargon, and the particularities of others’ listening. How often we assume shared meaning when in fact others are predisposed to hear something very different.
How much can be lost, or found, or created in translation.
This week, I pulled out my nine-and-a-half hour playlist of Christmas music. [I don’t usually do so before Thanksgiving, but turkey day is late this year, and I couldn’t wait.] On this playlist are six different covers of “Do You Hear What I Hear?” Every time one of these come on, I find myself muttering, “No,” in irritable reply.
I grumble not because I don’t love this carol. I do. It’s sweet and tender, and I’m moved by the knowledge that it was written as a plea for peace during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. Still, the titular question sparks something contrary in me. For some reason, the Destiny’s Child version is especially annoying to me lately. “Um…no, Beyoncé, I do not hear what you hear.”
In fact, I’m pretty sure that you and I and all of us are hearing very different things all the time. Even when we agree, we’re hearing different things. And when we find ourselves in disagreement — hell if I know what you’re hearing, what you’re trying to say, or even what planet you’ve come from.
The same sound vibration may have reached both of us. But when it landed on your eardrums and mine, it got modulated and translated differently through our different brains, into the individual languages of our past experiences, expectations, hopes, and fears.
If a tree falls in the forest and we’re both right there to witness it, still we hear it in our own way.
This can be pretty frustrating, especially when we crave is certainty and clarity. Confronting the uniqueness of our individual perceptions sure makes reality feel a lot more murky and subjective. For sure, sometimes, I want more objectivity, solid facts, and a consensual reality upon which we can all agree and to which we hold ourselves and each other accountable.
On the other hand, at the same time — the more we let go of our hankering for unison and unanimity, the more we allow variety, the more we celebrate diversity of opinion and make room for disagreement — the more we might recognize that it’s an awesome thing that we hear and speak and experience everything so differently.
It can be really liberating to give up the idea that everyone could or should perceive the world the same way that I do. Or that I ought to hear and see and feel the world as they do, either.
What if we stopped taking others’ understanding for granted? What if we took it, even, as a matter of course that everyone is on some completely different wavelength most of the time?
Maybe, then, when we did really attempt to communicate and relate and connect, we’d be inclined to do so with a lot more intention and care. Maybe this would lead to deeper, richer, more meaningful conversations with more active listening, and more honesty.
Our differences and discord, our struggles to understand and to make sense of each other — these can be tremendous gifts, wondrous human resources — because they require us to approach our relationships with greater patience and compassion, opening our hearts and minds.
They also invite us, perpetually, into an even greater communion, a deeper connection beyond mere agreement. Into a Wholeness that includes both of us and all of us. A Divine Idea that by definition is boundless, a Peace that surpasses any individual understanding.
You talkin’ to me? Thank you! Please tell me more, share with me what makes you tick. Help me see the world the way you know it. What lights you up? Between you and me and all of us, I think we could light the whole world.
Welcome to all the winter holidays, Dear Hearts. I can’t wait to be with you this Sunday, November 30. With the incomparable Patty Stephens. XO, Drew
©2025 Drew Groves
