Sometimes, though, inflammatory and imprecise is the way to go—if we tell our dialogue partner what we’re doing.

Take conversations around loaded issues. Early in our marriage, like many newlyweds, my wife and I had a wealth of issues to talk through, from division of household chores to the future course of our life together. Some of these issues carried serious emotional weight, and it was nearly impossible to broach them without sparks flying. Ever try to parse your words with precision when the top of your head is about to blow off?

Before we could make any progress in the conversation, then, we had to relieve some of that emotional pressure. But we didn’t want to do it in a way that would hurt the other person.

So we learned to bracket our conversations with verbal cues. When one of us said, “OK, I’m going to vent,” the other knew that what followed would be emotional, possibly painful, and probably imprecise. It could well exaggerate or misrepresent the reality of the situation. But because the “venter” gave this advance notice, the “ventee” could hear the words that followed in the proper context—the context the venter specified—and thus not react emotionally. Often, the vent would calm us down, and we could focus on our language enough to work through the intricacies of the issue.

We also do this bracketing when precise language escapes us. As she describes the details of a real-life situation—especially if they involve numbers—my wife will say, “I’m making these details up.” Again, that verbal cue enables me to hear what she says next in the context she’s established, so I get her essential meaning. If precise details become important, we can fill them in later.

Why does this matter? Why not parse out our language no matter what? Perhaps that would work if we were just word automatons. But, being human, we’re far messier than that. The passion we feel on certain issues is inherent to who we are: the issues probably wouldn’t be issues if we weren’t passionate about them! Giving voice to these emotions not only calms us but also conveys the depth of our convictions. And when we’re honestly groping for specific words—something that happens with greater frequency as we get older—why let it disrupt an otherwise fruitful dialogue?

The key, again, is to tell our dialogue partners what we’re doing. These verbal cues enable us to telegraph how we’re communicating in any specific stage of the dialogue. They help our partners better understand our meaning. Therefore, they contribute to a richer, more productive dialogue.

My little tale starts with a headline in my RSS feed. How can you not react to

Fetus Set To Testify In Favor Of Ohio Anti-Abortion Bill

First reaction: sigh. More weird antics in the abortion debate—the very antics that do as much to harden the battle lines as to clarify the issue.

Second reaction: media skepticism. Why did the reporter use the word testify? Surely he knew the connotations it would carry. I thought it inflammatory and irresponsible.  So I decided to blast it here to illustrate the need for precise language when discussing difficult issues.

Then I dug a little deeper and came to my third reaction: uh-oh. The article appeared in The Huffington Post. I’ve just started writing for The Huffington Post. Do I really want to criticize a story on a website that might prove critical to my writing venture?

Fortunately, the article’s author linked his story to a release from Faith2Action, an organization supporting the legislation. Fourth reaction: whoops. The word testify came not from the author, but from the source itself.

So. What did I learn from this exercise?

First, vested interests die hard—very hard. I write a lot about the danger they present to authentic dialogue, and the value of spirituality in clearing them away. None of that means I’m completely free of the damned things. Like our basic human instinct for self-preservation, vested interests appear to be always with us. Hence the need to strive against them in our internal preparation for dialogue.

Second, it is so easy to miss the full story. Remember death panels? I wonder how much of that drama could have been averted if more people had simply dug deeper into the facts. Surely, with the testifying fetus story, I could have stopped with the notice in my RSS feed and come to some conclusion about irresponsible journalism. And I would have been wrong.

Third—and I’ve said this ad nauseam—getting the full story and clearing away vested interests require reflection, time, and work. In today’s culture, these are hard to come by. And yet, as the death panels brouhaha illustrates, our national conversations could be more productive, and move more efficiently toward resolving our national issues, if we took the time and did the work.

True, we all have lives. We cannot possibly research every news story that comes our way. What we can do, perhaps, is suspend our judgment on those issues we cannot research.

The ingredients of dialogue—depth of thought, precision of language, the work of the soul—are difficult and elusive. Clearly, none of us gets them completely right. But our attempts to do so can make the world better. That alone is reason to pursue them.

While traveling through Normandy and Brittany, we encountered few people who were comfortable with English. I speak enough French to get by, so it became my job to order at the deli, buy stamps from the post office, talk to the cellphone people, etc. I adore the language, so this was a labor of love. But it took extraordinary amounts of mental energy to think through my sentences, understand the other person, and respond in kind. 

By the time my head hit the pillow, I was dead exhausted. And that led me to think about immigration.

Imagine you’re a U.S. immigrant whose first language is Spanish. Every day, you expend all that mental energy to navigate a strange language and culture. On top of that, you have to hold down a job, talk with your kids’ teachers, figure out the banking system, etc., etc. You may want to speak English, but learning a language takes years.

All this leads me to three thoughts. First, there’s clearly more to the immigration issue than “if you live here, you have to speak the language.” Whatever the validity of this position, it raises more questions than it answers. Since mastering English is both complex and time-consuming, can the U.S. take steps to accelerate the process among immigrants? How much accommodation should Americans make to other languages? Should government be involved in this? Should business?

All of this can lead to a rich dialogue, bridge building, and perhaps even a direction for policy. But it requires us to eschew bromides like “just speak English” as the beginning and end of the discussion.

Second, my place in this grand debate reminds me of the need for humility and sensitivity. I have my own (ridiculously liberal) opinions about immigration policy, but then I don’t live in a high-immigration region. It’s essential, then, that I honor the opinions of both Anglos and Latinos in the U.S. Southwest—because they live this issue. No matter how much I think that absolutes of social justice are on my side, I cannot be a party to this dialogue unless I commit to hearing others out.

Third is the surpassing value of travel in broadening our perspectives.  When we delve into another culture entirely, we quickly discover an incredible diversity of viewpoints. What seems self-evident to white Anglo Americans might be completely foreign to a South African matriarch, or an aboriginal hunter, or a young hotelier in Normandy. We cannot help but begin to see our personal worldview as one among many. This reorients us to approach others not only with openness, but with empathy.

In my case, I can hold all kinds of theoretical opinions about immigration and language issues. But traveling to France gave me a glimpse of what it really feels like to be a stranger in a strange land. It left me, quite naturally, with more openness, more empathy. And that was just for a week: imagine how much a year in Poland, say, or mission work in the Philippines might have changed me.   

Given the long, angry history of our national immigration debate—which has lasted well over a century—this openness and empathy might be just the thing to move us from debate to dialogue.