In the past week, I’ve watched as my home state of Tennessee has been impacted by powerful forces. The first of those forces was the series of deadly and destructive tornadoes that struck in the early hours of March 3rd. Those tornadoes came in the dark, but the other forces I’ve watched were coming with the daylight. In the days following, I’ve seen the powerful force of communication to organize and connect. In the wake of the storms, I’ve been reminded of how strong we are because of our ability to communicate.
Communication as an Organizing Force
This past Friday I took a small team of students from the university I teach at out to one of the most heavily impacted neighborhoods. I was impressed by the coordinated movement of thousands of people. Volunteers, law enforcement, relief agencies, and media crews were all working together. I couldn’t help but think how communication had made these efforts possible. When we arrived on sight, everyone was quick to point us to the volunteer station. There, we signed in and received name tags, work gloves, and trash bags. Organizers gave us instructions and sent us to a location. Black bags were for trash. Clear bags were for salvageable personal belongings. One pile for bricks. One pile for furniture. One pile for metal. One pile for drywall. One pile for lumber scraps.
Without the efforts of companies like HandsOn Nashville, who organize and mobilize volunteer efforts, we wouldn’t have known how to help. That reminded me that in order for people to be moved, for ideas to be effective, for efforts to produce results, communication has to be clear and organized. From the moment we showed up to help, we knew where to go and people guided us in what to do. The same is true for the presentations we construct for our audiences. They are looking to us for where to go and what to do, We must be able to direct and respond to the energy and questions they bring. When we organize our presentation into discernable points or parts, we unleash the powerful organizational force of communication to consolidate and direct human activity and thought.
Communication as a Connecting Force
Communication has another powerful force. It’s the ability to connect us. I can’t tell you how many bricks I moved. I can’t tell you how much drywall I threw onto the pile. But I can tell you that I’ll never forget the moment when I lifted up a large chunk of drywall to find a fairly untouched spiral notebook. On the cover of the notebook was written “Intro to Speech” with the professor’s name, the class time, and the student’s name. Thanks to social media, it only took a few minutes for me to find the story of the student whose home I was serving at, to celebrate that she had survived, and to read her story of that night in her own words.
This was a “zoom in” moment. Specific, relatable, touching, connective. I chose not to publish her name or pictures of the wreckage of her home, because ultimately, I don’t feel like it’s my story to tell.
But I have watched over the past week as people have come forward to tell their stories. There have been many, many “zoom in” moments. I’ve watched the beautiful generosity of humans as GoFundMe accounts exceed their goals, as organizations collect and distribute donations and supplies, as strangers work in tandem side by side to meet human need. It has reminded me that we generally respond with great interest and kindness when we encounter narrative. Which is why it’s so important that we tell stories in our presentations. Because they connect us. Writer and social worker Kristin A. Meekhof puts it this way:
“Within the story, we find are alike we are in our pain, suffering, growth and decisions. Within the story, we discover how similar we are in our fears, angst, sorrow and heartache. Within the story, we touch regret, loss, grace, and lament at what is no longer ours to hold. Within the story, we reach others we may never meet, but if we have confidence in the power of our words we know the reader’s [or listener’s] anxiety may just be transmuted into something called healing.”
We will be faced with dark and destructive forces that seem out of our control. But it can bring us hope when we remember that we have our own powerful force. It’s called communication. And with it, we can organize human effort and thought and connect to the larger story of the human experience. And with those forces, we move onward.
Ethos3 sends condolences to all of those impacted by the tornadoes in our beloved state of Tennessee. If you need help telling your story, we’re here to help.
