The Right Questions

Sometimes there are failures in communication.

I was recently talking to my Associate, and he told me some big news about one of our friends. This was surprising to me, as I had chatted with this friend online a few times recently and emailed him, but he never alluded to anything. When I finally asked him why he did not tell me this big news of his, he told me it was because I never asked.

I wonder, what things are going on with the people I know that I am unaware of? What is happening that I do not know because I did not ask the right question?

In an ideal world, people would tell me new and noteworthy things before I run through a battery of twenty questions. Then I started to think, how many times has something new happened to me and I never said anything? I have waited many times for questions that never came. I write short speeches in my mind explaining what I think about, stuff that happens to me, and my feelings on situations. Most of these speeches remain on a shelf in my thoughts and never find voice aloud.

As an example, neither of the groups I am involved with at church know I spent five semesters leading a Bible study group in college. Even though one group is reading Peter's First Letter and I have a quasi-teaching role in the other, they don't know this useful experience of mine.

As a step in learning to ask the right questions, I will volunteer information about myself. Last week I started reading some Shakespeare. What started as reading Richard II took me to the library for more plays and to websites covering the Hundred Years War, the real figures behind Shakespeare's history plays, and questions about the "Pseudo-Shakespearian" play Edward III.