Communication FUNdamentals

Grace Talk Soup is our weekly podcast where my co host and I share tips and techniques for more effective communication in various situations life brings us.  Carla and I a serving up God’s Word with side order of Grace and Humor each Thursday morning at 8am PST/11am EST.  Our live show has some great fun as the audience participates in much of the show!  Grace Talk Soup also receives HUNDREDS of downloads of our past archived shows a month!

Just in the last few months we have talked about subjects such as Defending the Faith, 21 Days to More Godly Communication, Cultural Differences in Communication and How to Talk to Someone Who is Grieving!  And the feedback has been amazing.

We are holding a constest each week where you could win free air time for your favorite cause, ministry, business or blog!  Just help us promote the show each week by posting our link http://www.talkshoe.com/tc/19736 and a bit about the show or inviting others to attend then email us to tell us where and how many times you posted gts@artofeloquence.com sharing a bit of information on your cause/busienss. You will be automatically entered in the contest!  The one who posts the most that week, will win free exposure for their cause as we read all about it and post your link in our chatroom on the air during the show!

You can enter as many times as you like each week!  Each week is a new chance to win!  Put our TalkCast badge up on your blog/site and that gets you an entry each week!

Grace Talk Soup has a fan club over on Facebook too!  We’re over 500 members strong!  Come join us and hear about all the latest shows and get inside information and freebies that only our Facebook fans have access to!  As we talk about the issues for the shows, you can post relevent information about your cause or ministry there as well!

Grace Talk Soup’s menu is up on the site for the next several weeks so go check out what’s coming up!  And remember: Life can get a little spicy sometimes. Just add a generous helping of grace, a dash of humor and enjoy the Grace Talk Soup!

Yesterday I posted about the 911 call that told of Michael Jackson’s death.  Many have asked me to comment on his life, but I really didn’t know enough about him to do that.  I do believe he was a troubled man and I know he didn’t know the Lord as his Savior.

I did wonder at the differences surrounding the death of both of those pop stars on Thursday. Farrah Fawcett had a very strong Christian faith (at least at the end of her life.) and I do believe it helped to keep her grounded and I am sure it was a comfort to her as she was going through the struggle known as cancer.  Michael Jackson was not a Christian.   Sean Hannity asked Reverend Al Sharpton what he thought the differences were between his having to deal with fame in the public eye as a famous figure and Michael Jackson’s struggle with fame as a pop star.  He said it was the fact that he was grounded in his faith.  I don’t tend to agree with many of the things Reverend Sharpton has said over the years, we are politically different, but his statement was so true no matter your political persuasion!

Then yesterday a Twitter friend, Duong Sheahan, sent me this video.   It’s of a pastor who is talking about how Mr. Jackson’s life might have been different if he had known The Father, Almighty God.  So for today, Defending the Faith SONday I thought I would post the video for your consideration.

No matter how our earthly father or the world may treat us, our Heavenly Father is bigger than all!

By now you have all probably heard that on Thursday two pop stars lost their lives.  Farrah Fawcett lost her three year battle with cancer Thursday morning and Michael Jackson died Thursday afternoon of an apparent heart attack.

One of my readers asked if I would be posting about Michael Jackson and, at the time, I didn’t think I would be.  Communication FUNdamentals is mostly about humor and communication skills.  Other than a few media stories in recent years, I haven’t really followed Mr. Jackson’s life so I wasn’t going to comment.  However, shortly after his death, there appeared to be some conflicting communication about the cause of his death coming from the transcripts of the 911 tape.  It appeared that more was revealed by what was not said and not done.

I heard the 911 tape and was suprised at what it revealed.  I have no medical training at all so, at first, I felt I may not be able to properly discern anything from the tapes.  But a medical expert on the Sean Hannity Show expressed the same concerns and added one more piece of medical information that further shocked me.

The first thing that struck me about the tape was how polite the caller was taking the time to call the 911 operator “sir” often as if it was his nature.  You could tell he was nervous and not sure what to say because he repeated himself and the 911 operator several times.  Another thing that struck me odd was that this very polite unidentified man didn’t identify Mr. Jackson, but just called him “a gentleman here.”   Since he did know his age when asked (without having to ask the doctor for that information), it seemed to me that he was told not to identify him by name due to his fame.

The most distressing thing to me was when the 911 operator was told that there was already a doctor on the scene!  I was wondering why on earth that doctor wasn’t on the phone with 911 instead of this poor man.  I thought it would certainly speed treatment along to have the 911 operator briefed by a medical doctor who was with the patient at the time.  In fact, we find in the next few lines of the transcript/audio that the doctor was the ONLY one with Mr. Jackson when it happened.  The medical expert on the show said that, if it were his patient, he personally would be on the phone with 911 instead of giving that job to someone else.

The caller said that Mr. Jackson was on the bed and that the doctor had already tried CPR and was “trying to pump him.”  This sounds to me as if the doctor was currently performing CPR on the bed.  The medical expert on the show pointed out something that I had forgotten from my one and only CPR training.  You’re supposed to do CPR on the FLOOR!

Apparently the initial report on the cause of death didn’t show any heart disease that would be consistent with a heart attack so they are deferring the cause of death until more tests can be done.  The communication from the 911 tape  suggests negligence on the part of the attending personal physician.  Some reports say that Mr. Jackson had allegedly been receiving regular injections of very strong pain killers which might have caused a heart attack.  How very sad.

Farrah Fawcett was only 62 and had been fighting cancer for three years.  Michael Jackson was only 50 years old.  My prayers go out to their families and to this doctor as well.

Ever wonder what it would look like if farmers were like car salesmen?  Here’s a glimpse from the folks at Good Clean Funnies List.net:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A farmer had been taken advantage of several times by the local car dealer. One day, the car dealer informed the farmer that he was coming over to purchase a cow.

The farmer priced his cow as follows:

# Basic cow……………………… $499.95

# Shipping and handling…………….. 35.75

# Extra stomach……………………. 79.25

# Two-tone exterior……………….. 142.10

# Produce storage compartment………. 126.50

# Heavy-duty straw chopper…………. 189.60

# Four-spigot/high-output drain system. 149.20

# Automatic fly swatter…………….. 88.50

# Genuine cowhide upholstery……….. 179.90

# Deluxe dual horns………………… 59.25

# Automatic fertilizer attachment…… 339.40

# 4 x 4 traction drive assembly…….. 884.16

# Pre-delivery wash and comb………… 69.80

# FARMER SUGGESTED LIST PRICE:…….. 2843.36

# Additional dealer adjustments:……. 300.00

TOTAL LIST PRICE (Including options): $3143.36

Want a creative and fun way to learn to communicate effectively? Check out Art of Eloquence.com!

What is wrong with THIS picture?! This has not been a good week for me or for my Grace Talk Soup co host!  She has had some family emergencies and will not be able to make the show today.  Please keep her and her family in your prayers.

I’ve had a cold for over a week now.  Just the old sore throat and stuffy nose thing.  Nothing to write blog about.  I thought it was going away til the other day when I got hit hard with, I don’t know WHAT.  I don’t feel like I have the flu because I don’t really have any body aches or fever.  But BOY HOWDY do I feel awful!  I kind of feel like I did when I had sun stroke, but I haven’t been out in the sun!  I’ve been at the pool watching my son’s swimming lesson but I’ve been under a canopy or in the shade almost the whole time.  My head hurt so badly that I felt sick and was shaky.  I slept most of the day yesterday and I still feel like I was run over by a semi with an attitude!

Needless to say Grace Talk Soup’s menu has changed for today since Ethel the Editor isn’t able to be here to share all her fabulous and fun tips for self editing.  We will be rescheduling her show for a later date.

Since we normally don’t have too much time to get into the issues I blog about each week, I thought I’d take the opportunity to do that today.  I’m calling it Communicating with JoJo and I would love it if you would come to the live show (8am PST/11am EST) and offer your comments on the this week’s communication issues from right here on Communication FUNdamentals.

I would also appreciate your prayers today.  I have so much to do today, but it’s hard to get anything done when you’re always inspecting the inside of your eyelids!

Communication Lessons from Shakespeare

While going through my email files, I found the following quote:

“Conversation should be pleasant without scurrility, witty without affectation, free without indecency, learned without conceitedness, novel without falsehood.” ~William Shakespeare

Shakespeare packs quite a lot into this one line and I thought it so profound that I wanted to disect it to get the full impact of what he is saying here.

Shakespeare says that conversation should be pleasant without scurrility.  Scurrility is abusive language or a rude remark. This is quite unique today with the invention of electronic communication such as you are reading here.  More and more I see people who feel free or even justified to be rude just because they don’t have to look their victim in the eye as they do it.

Next he says conversation should be witty without affectation. Affectation means a speech that is not natural for you.  It is natural to want to put your best foot forward when we present ourselves to others but it is important that we don’t change who God made us to fit that bill.  I’m a goofball.  It comes naturally.  I goof around with language when I write and speak.  It’s natural for me.  If I were to try to be some Serious Sally, you might feel like I was putting on airs.  In fact, I have a story to tell you about that.

Way back when I first started writing communication studies, my husband was in charge of editing my work.  He doesn’t write the way I do.  He’s got a fabulous sense of humor, but he doesn’t write that way.  His style is more formal and polished.  After reading over his changes, I remember thinking it sounded like I swallowed a dictionary!  I took it back to him and said, “Lighten up, Francis!”  (from a line in a movie)

God gave each of us a unique perspective.  Nobody wants to read what you think someone else would say.  They want to know what YOU think.

Next Shakespeare says we should be free without indecency.  Free speech should not be so free that we compromise moral decency. Free speech has its consequences and one of them is that we have now become a society where anything goes, but very little is valuable.  It’s hard to draw that line in law, but most of us know when it’s been crossed.   Ephesians 4:29 tells us, “Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers.”

For the past few weeks, I’ve been posting some fabulous videos of Christian comedians and I’ve noticed something.  It takes so much more talent and creativity to be funny without swearing and what results makes you laugh even more!

Next he talks about being learned without conceitedness.  Conversation should strive to be intelligent discussion without putting on those airs.  Anne Morrow Lindbergh said “Good communication is as stimulating as black coffee and just as hard to sleep after.”

Do you have someone in your life that you dread talking to?  Someone who either never says anything new or someone who is always talking about himself so that you get bored with the conversation?  Do you have someone in your life you just LOVE talking to?  Maybe this person is an elderly relative who always has such rich and interesting stories to tell about life in the last century.  Conversation can be dull or it can have you hanging on every word.  It’s up the the individual to give something interesting of himself and there is a fine line between giving of himself and giving himself.

Finally Shakespeare talks about being novel without falsehood.  This goes along the same lines as the previous segment.  There are those for whom boredom breaks out of his mouth because he never interjects a novel idea into the conversation.  Then there are those who spin wild tales just to wow their audience who is fully aware that almost none of this fantastic tale is actually true.

I hope you enjoyed your Communication lessons from Shakespeare!  I now return you to your regularly scheduled era.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
JoJo Tabares holds a degree in Speech Communication, but it is her humorous approach to communication skills which has made her a highly sought-after Christian speaker and writer.  Her articles appear in homeschool publications, such as Homeschool Enrichment Magazine and The Old Schoolhouse Magazine, which also endorses her Say What You Mean curricula.  You can also find JoJo on web sites such as Crosswalk.com and Dr.Laura.com.  For more information on communication FUNdamentals and Christian-based communication skills for the whole family, please visit http://www.ArtofEloquence.com

Be careful where you purchase your Bible!  LOL  Christian comedian Bone Hampton: Irregular Bible.  Too funny!

For more help learning to express yourself, visit Art of Eloquence.com!

I got my TEACH Magazine the other day. I was so happy. I missed the last issue. Somehow it never made it to me.  Most of you know that I just have to have my TOS and my TEACH!  Well, Lorrie Flem is a dear lady. I’ve had her on Grace Talk Soup and she was one of the Keynote Speakers for the Say What You Mean Convention last year.

There are so many wonderful articles in this issue!  One that caught my attention was the one called “Ordinary Obedience Following Flubber.”  It talks about how she met her dh and how her feelings for him went back and forth early on.  She says feelings are just like Flubber.

“Feelings are cold and hot squishy and firm.  They break apart, but easily meld together with firm guidance of obedience and commitment.”

I think that your communication changes with your feelings too.  When you are in love, you talk about how cute it is that he leaves his dirty laundry on the floor. But by the time your 1st anniversary rolls around, you are tired of picking up his dirty laundry off the floor so you no longer feel it’s cute.  You then spend much of your time communicating to him in a way that isn’t as God would have a wife speak to her husband.

So your feelings and your communication can be like flubber running both hot and cold.  It’s our commitment to our marriage or friendships or our Lord that helps us speak in a more godly way.

For more communication tips and fun, check out Art of Eloquence.com