Greetings

This morning, I noticed that it took many tries before I gave up recording a new greeting for the church voice mail system. Finally, I chose a very generic info packed greeting. Why was I struggling so much? Was it because I was trying to put so much info on it?

We use many different types of greetings. When addressing strangers, our “Hello!” contains cautious and respectful tone. With friends, the same word expresses our joy of being together. When exchanged within one’s family it has intimacy and understanding that is very deep.
Another interesting thing about our greetings is that it reveals who we are at the moment of exchange. It signals whether we are glad, sad, angry, friendly, hostile, gentle, and so on. That short exchange communicates so much of us to others.

No wonder, then, people try to peer into our mood, well being and feeling when they receive our greetings. This is why I find myself keep recording to find that right tone as I greet people through our answering machine.

Because I do not know in advance who will use our voice mail, I try to bring tones and words that express in a way that listeners can not only say that our recorded message was okay, but also go away having been welcomed by a community of Christians.

Can in a voice mail message a stranger be welcomed as if she was welcomed at home? Can in those few words a person feel the love of Christ we share? As a Christian community, it turns out that these questions do matter because we represent not only who we are but Christ who loved the world.

In a same way, greeting classmates, sales clerks, cashiers, friends and others can be occasions to share God's love or it could be simply a detached word that tells everyone to stay away from us. It could be inviting or rejecting of others. It takes courage to find ways to show not simply your friendliness in general but share a bit your yourself as God's image to others.