The Power of Open Communication

I’m sure you saw the story a couple of weeks ago. If not, you have to hear about it. A man with a gun attempted to highjack a school bus in Columbia, South Carolina. The bus was filled with younger elementary students, including a lot of kindergartners. But the commander let them all go because the kids would not stop talking to him, asking him questions. “Are you going to hurt us?” “Are you going to hurt our bus driver?” “Why do you want our bus?"Instead of cowering in fear, they engaged the man. And the man could not handle the “open and fearless engagement.” So he pulled over and let them all go.Besides the laugh I got, remembering my three childrens' incessant questioning about everything when they were that age, there’s also a good lesson in this. It exposes the power of open communication. When facing a conflict, a threatening situation, or even controversy, the worst thing we can do is shut down and end communication with those we are in conflict with. That may be a natural response to fear, but it accomplishes nothing. In this day of cancel culture and divisive media and politics, where there is little reasonable and healthy debate any longer, we’ve only spiraled into near chaos.Open, reasonable, and respectful dialog is the only thing short of Jesus’ return that will sort out the chaos we are experiencing in this cancel culture. Our nation’s founding fathers understood how important open communication is in the middle of conflict, which is why the First Amendment was the first amendment.But it’s not just in politics where we are suffering from cancel culture. It’s also in our homes. Husbands yell over their wives spoken concerns, wives shut down communication by clamming up (and vice versa). It’s a form of relational cancel culture, and it’s killing some of your marriages, relationships with your kids, and effectiveness with your coworkers. Ending communication by manipulative angry outbursts or manipulatively clamming up, only ends the possibility of finding a solution to whatever problem you are up against.On the other hand, as the kindergartners on that bus in Columbia, South Carolina demonstrated, open, reasonable, and honest discourse, without fear or anger, drives away evil, and produces a solution.Let’s learn that lesson in our families, our church, and our nation.