Not Speaking...

So I had a little epiphany moment today...

What if God creates non-verbal children because he is forcing us to communicate in a different fashion?

As a challenge course facilitator I do that all the time.  

A member of the group knows too much?  They have to play silently so the rest of the team has a chance to figure it out for themselves...

One voice drowns out the others?  Challenge that member to play silently so that new voices are heard...

Some groups don't find success at all until we tell them they all have to be silent - and then the arguing stops and they actually start completing the task...

I start most groups with a partnered hike in which one member is mute and the other blind, so that they are forced to think of novel ways to communicate. They are ALWAYS successful, even in navigating long stairwells...

So maybe that non-verbal child is there to help FORCE us to communicate in new, novel ways that are designed to help us figure it out for ourselves...

I also had another epiphany moment today.

I was thinking about how I look at things that happen around me, and about how I relate to them, give them significance, by finding connections to the stories of my own life.  I was thinking that while it helps me to feel things as real, it also limits me to stories about myself.  I actually was thinking how frustrating it is that I only get this one life, this one way in which to relate to things!  I was thinking that I would love to know even more by being able to see and feel from another person too...  I was both glad to have a life that relates (connects) to things, and frustrated to be limited to just this one.

just thinking...