Don't give us Dirty Laundry

A young couple moves into a new neighborhood.

The next morning while they are eating breakfast, the young woman sees her neighbor hanging the wash outside.

"That laundry is not very clean", she said.  "She doesn't know how to wash correctly. Perhaps she needs better laundry soap."

Her husband looked on, but remained silent...

Every time her neighbor would hang her wash to dry, the young woman would make the same comments.

About one month later, the woman was surprised to see a nice clean wash on the line and said to her husband:  "Look, she has learned how to wash correctly.  I wonder who taught her this."

The husband said, "I got up early this morning and cleaned our windows."

And so it is with life. What we see when watching others depends on the purity of the window through which we look.

• The preceding was not intended as a pitch for Sonlight Window Cleaning, as it was something sent to me by a church friend (and I had already pasted it here before I made the connection), but if you are in the need of window cleaning services, I will tell you that I wholeheartedly endorse and recommend the work of its owner, Todd.

Back to the story, the purity of what we perceive is so often colored by other conditions, often beyond our control.  My middle son asked me a few weeks ago if I ever feel that people misunderstand me.

"Frequently", I replied, noting that at times it seems I'm misunderstood more often that not.  Just in the past couple of days, I've had a couple of misunderstandings, one a family situation, the other not.

As someone who truly enjoys wordsmithing and wordplay, with a background that includes management and communication courses and seminars, I take a certain amount of pride in being able to effectively express my thoughts.  Except that it doesn't always turn out thusly.  I suppose that I could point to those classes I've taken, and my gallon jar of 50¢ words, and dismiss miscommunication as others' fault - after all, I knew what I meant and used precise language to so state, maybe in Safire-ean terms.

But that would be wrong.  Absolutely wrong.  Because of the effort and the background, I have a greater, not lesser, duty and accountability, if my message is incorrectly taken.

Communication involves both expressing and listening.  And sometimes pre-occupation with the 'just so' formation of ideas inhibits the listening on the feedback channel to hear how the message is being perceived.

So, if something I've written (or said, if we're acquainted) strikes you as odd, out of character, or just plain wrong, please interrupt me, and allow me to clarify.