The last time we talked about building walls between people. As promised, here are my thoughts on building bridges between people. In the physical sense, what does a bridge do? It simply allows two areas that have an obstacle between them, such as a river or valley, to be connected and accessible to each other. They have to be made of sturdy material such as steel and iron. Bridges between people allow them to connect and be accessible to each other, just like our real world bridge. What are the building materials of "people bridges?"

     The building materials of our people bridges are actually pretty intuitive, but I suspect we don't spend much time thinking about them. It seems to me that the first and basic one is communication. We talk to people all day. Notice I said "talk to" and not "talk with." There is a big difference. Good communicators learn that almost everyone's favorite subject is himself or herself. They seek to allow that person to talk about themselves and are truly interested in hearing the information. They use what is called reflective listening skills,   meaning they ask questions along the way to insure they are truly understanding, and not just hearing, what the person is saying. At the end of a conversation with a good listener, the person feels they are understood.

     The next "steel beam" on my list is kindness. How many times did our mothers admonish us that if we didn't have anything good to say, don't say anything at all. That's the first basic point of kindness. In our society, we are somewhat geared to think of ourselves first and then the other fellow. It okay to intentionally give up our number one position and put the other person's needs and feelings first. A simple example of this happened to me recently at the grocery store. I ran in just to get a gallon of milk. I arrived at the checkout stand at the same time (or a second or two later) than this man who had a whole basket full of groceries. He saw that I only had the one thing, and graciously allowed me to go ahead of him. I felt blessed and thanked him. He had every right to not do that, but he chose to be kind. It's sort of contagious, because as I was leaving the store, I got to the door at about the same time as someone who had a large load she was struggling with to get to her car. In my moment of largess, just moments before inspired in me, I helped her get her basket to the car. I know that's no big deal, but just used to make a point. One of the shortest, but most profound scriptures in the Bible is, "be ye kind to one another." (Ephesians 4:32) Just as real world bridges need paint to keep from rusting or rotting, people bridges need to be kept painted regularly with kindness.

Some may not agree with me on this, but I think a great bridge material between people is laughter. Its hard to not feel connected to someone when you share a good, hearty belly-laugh with them. Conversely, sharing moments of grief with someone builds strong bridges as well. The Bible puts it like this is Romans 12:15, "Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep." We don't always feel as comfortable in sharing sorrow as we do in laughing, but if you practice both, you will have more bridges built that you can imagine.

So that's it for this entry. This by no means is a comprehensive list of bridge building materials, but only a good start. Go get some construction materials of you own, and start building more bridges today! See ya next time............Steve (www.tidwinkle.com)