by Fr James Thottupuram

Since I have had for many years a longing to come to you whenever I go to Spain-for I hope to see you in passing. (Romans 15:23,24)

Captain Red McDaniel rapped on his cell walls in the "Hanoi Hilton"-tap-tap...tap-tap-tap-practicing the special camp code prisoners used to communicate with each other. He was risking his life since one of the strictest rules in the celebrated Vietnamese POW camp was: No communication with other prisoners.

His communist captors wanted to keep all "guests" isolated and vulnerable. And McDaniel had already been through that; now he was in solitary confinement. As the long hours and days passed, he met the real enemy-isolation. Without human contact or conversation, he knew only the dulling, silent darkness of loneliness.

The highlight of each day was being taken to the washroom, where he managed to whisper briefly with two other Americans. They taught him the camp code, which involved a certain number of taps or other signals that spelled out letters of the alphabet.

McDaniel, who tells of his long years of imprisonment in his book Scars and Stripes, saw nearly 50 of America's finest trained men go into isolation, never to be heard from again. For himself, it was either communicate or die. New prisoners who did not learn the code within 30 days would gradually start to draw inward and deteriorate. They would stop eating and slowly lose the will to live. Eventually, isolation would suck their very lives from them.

Isolation and the failure to communicate also drain life from relationships. Like the apostle Paul, most people long for intimacy and fellowship, but without communication, these essentials are impossible.

Communicate! Your marriage depends on it!

Prayer:

That the lines of communication will stay open in order for your relationship with God and your family to flourish.

Discuss between the couple:

Can you recall an example in your own family when the lack of communication created a problem? How could family members work together to improve communication

See Also:

Beatitudes of Marriage

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