And Now Something Completely Different

I don't know how many people have watched the Monty Python episode "And now something completely different." It is English humor so probably not many have seen it. Anyway, the entire movie presents some very absurd situations that seem to be beyond any common sense - if it still exists. There is a part about a lawsuit where the author of the Hungarian -English dictionary is accused for mixing up the meaning of the words. As a consequence people coming to England are offending English people.

Sometimes I think the same happens in our time but this time it's not because of a dictionary but rather because of the lack. The same word means something to the speaker and something different to the listener. I've had experiences in my life where one homily brings two completely different reactions - same words but different outcomes.

For so many years I tried to decipher this phenomenon. I believe I have finally got it. We do not listen anymore to the words but to ourselves. It is not what is said but what we want to hear. The simple statement coming from the Gospel according to John "Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love" (Jn 4:8) can mean so many things. For one person it will be a message that we have to love God too and do everything that he asks of us. For another person it will be that God loves us and that is it. But it could also mean that God is love so I can do whatever I want because I am loved unconditionally. Why is there this difference? Because we do not listen to what was really said, we hear only the piece that satisfies our own needs.

I always liked the meeting with parents while I was teaching at school. "Your son didn't know the Ten Commandments," and the parents looked at me: "Did you say that my son is dumb?"; "No, I am saying that he didn't spend a minute to learn the material." Actually I didn't have to deal with that too much, but other teachers sometimes were completely exhausted after those meetings. Yes, we are suffering from a very dangerous disease: listening without understanding. Our emotions are listening but not our reason and that is why we have so many conflicts in our modern world. It is time to listen to what is said and only in this way can we reach the truth.