Some of you have probably heard the story that Gene Weingarten of the Washington Post wrote about having a professional violinist to play in a subway station and watching people walk past without notice. It was a wonderful study of how we don’t pay attention.

Pat Loughery posted on his blog a reference to this story that is interesting and insightful.

In our current society, we are under a constant barrage of advertisements. Everywhere we go, we see billboards, signs, people handing us papers or leaving them on our windshields. We go home and we see commercials. We go online and we see pop-up windows and receive spam in our email inboxes. There is no end to the level of advertising that goes on. In many ways, our brains have learned to turn all of that off, and we often move forward without even noticing it for the most part. The effect of this is that we tune everything else out as well and we isolate ourselves. That’s why one-on-one contact is more meaningful to us.

Pat said in his post, “I don’t think the answer is to yell louder. Instead, I think we have an opportunity to create beauty and genius and insight and offer it in ways that train people to maybe, just maybe, loosen up those worldviews and begin the trust.”

What’s interesting is that he made the connection about trust. That really breaks it down, doesn’t it? I have a friend who doesn’t trust easily. She was hurt by a failed marriage and other people, but she doesn’t really trust God, either. Her inability to trust has become an obstacle to her faith. Making connections with people is about breaking the barrier of trust and building relationships. We can’t do that by yelling at folks or berating them or making them feel like God is judging them.

Sometimes, when I am dealing with my son, I will stop talking completely to get his attention. I do this because I know that he has learned to tune out my lectures and speeches. Some of our greatest moments are when I am tucking him in bed and kissing him goodnight. Suddenly, out of the quiet come the most amazing questions and a willingness to hear.

At the surface, it might seem like all of this is just a tactic, a method, another form of advertisement, but it is really more about building trust and breaking through the barriers that people build up. It’s about reaching people in a real and meaningful way, and understanding the sociological barriers that we have to break through to do that. It isn’t a method, but a roadmap that leads us to a better understanding of ourselves and those around us.