What really matters...

We all have things we want to do in our lives someday.  The truth is there are probably a lot of things that don't get done because life gets in the way. One of my examples is learning Spanish. I first decided that I wanted to learn Spanish when I was in the Dominican Republic in 2003. I actually registered to take a Spanish class at Elon, but it was going to double the cost of my books, and it wasn't required for my major, so I decided to drop the class. I did take a basic Spanish class through the Delaware Career Center when I was teaching preschool in 2005, but while I have learned some basic words and phrases, I am not really much closer to being able to have a conversation. I have also traveled to Honduras and Costa Rica on mission trips, and wished I could fully communicate with the people I met, especially the children. So 11 years later, the desire is still there, but I am not much closer to the goal. Fast forward to the present: This has been a crazy year. I started ...

Have you ever tried to put words to something that simply wasn't describable? At youth group several years ago, we were having sloppy joes for dinner, and one of the youth had never had a sloppy joe before so he asked what it tasted like. And the rest of struggled to come up with the words to describe what exactly a sloppy joe tastes like. Because the truth is that the only way you know what a sloppy joe tastes like is if you taste it. And that is a limit of language: it can't fully convey an experience or a thought. When I lead team building, I talk about the importance communication when working with others, and I like to say there are 3 parts to communication. Part 1. Sending a message or information.  This can be through talking, physical contact, facial expressions, body language, writing/typing, gestures, smoke signals - any way we can think of to send a message. This is where communication starts. But if this is all that happens - there is no communication. Just ...