Do You Want to Hear My Lecture?

As of late, I have been asking our (adult) daughters, "Do you want to hear my lecture?"  Most often I'm met with hesitation and a wary response.  Surprisingly, I never get "Sure, Mom, that would be great!"

It's a good question, I think, but if I am being honest, their answer to it doesn't really matter, because, as they quickly realized, they're going to have to listen to my lecture anyway.  

The topic doesn't matter.  It can cover a variety of things that I am convinced they need my opinion on in their life. The question is sort of my way of preparing them ahead of time for whatever I need to say, and hopefully, it will provide the ramp on which to say it.

My question to them is a relatively new phenomenon that I started accidentally, so I'll have to let you know if it becomes a thing, and actually works, or if I am forced to stop it.

Anyway, I guess the key is that it's about what "I" need to say. It may or may not be what they actually need to hear (although, in my opinion, they do.) It's a good thing our daughters have a sense of humor and (so far) take all of this in stride. 

It's still early, I've only used it twice (once on each of them), so like I said, I'll let you know if it's effective in case you want to use it, too.

All of this--to get to my point--is to say that holding someone captive to our viewpoint is nothing more than "talking at" them.  Truthfully, this doesn't usually work very good.  If we want to have a genuine conversation about, say, religion, for example, we really do need to be good listeners.

It is amazing what you learn when you give other people a chance to say what they think.  If you listen carefully, you will often be surprised. I still like Tom Hanks acronym to remind himself to listen--WAIT--which stands for "Why Am I Talking?"

Today is National Day of Prayer, and my hope is that you will offer a prayer for someone, or something, you care deeply about, because we have a Father in heaven who always listens to us and never asks, "Do you want to hear my lecture?"

Janet Cassidy
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