We had a great holiday.
Some of the funniest times, when we laughed a lot, arose from people misunderstandings.

One example comes from a campsite where the wardens sold home produced stuff. Joe came back one morning and asked what would be in Tom’s bags and could he have £1 to buy some as the sign outside the shop said ‘Bag of Tom’s £1’.

Another happened when we were hitching the caravan to move to another site. I asked Sarah to turn the stabiliser in the direction with the arrow pointing to ‘on’. She replied that there wasn’t a ‘on’ but there was a ‘no’ with an arrow next to it!

My final example comes from a child in Sarah’s class who had drawn a picture of a person. When Sarah asked what a part of the picture was the conversation went something like ‘that’s his willy’ ‘excuse me’ ‘his willy … you know, willies that you wear to jump in puddles when it is raining’!

A lot of confusion can occur when we mis-hear, see differently, or misunderstand what is happening. It strikes me that the church is in this position at the moment with people not quite grasping what is being said but immediately interpreting what they think is being said in the light of their own exprience.

For unity, for witness, to show the love of Christ we need to properly hear and understand ech other, which requires more than just listening.