Communicate for the “Mind’s Eye”
Craft Effective Visual Metaphors
Master Nonverbal Communication Skills
How to Be an Audience-Centered Communicator
Select the Appropriate Communication Channel
Analyze and Adapt to Your Audience
Be an Intentional Communicator
Be a Transpositional Communicator
Be an Audience-Centered Communicator
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When the Nobel Prize winning poet, Seamus Heaney, came to the door of The Kilns, C. S. Lewis’s home in Oxford, he shouted, “I want to see the house where the Irishman lived!” Heaney grew up in North Ireland not all that far from where Lewis was raised. Ireland is a country that seems to have a disproportionate number of great writers, given the comparatively small population. Lewis thought it was in the genes to be a communicator. He once wrote, “I am an Irishman and a congenital rhetorician”1 Perhaps that is it. The Irish are simply great at communication, and there is nothing more to it: great storytellers; great at spinning a yarn, and great at holding the attention of an audience. Perhaps it is something in the water. Perhaps, it is the island’s unique combination of extraordinary beauty. The landscapes take one’s breath away. However, the beauty also coexists with the history of a people who have endured centuries of suffering. Beauty and sorrow weave the texture unique to Irish literature. Is this what Lewis had in mind when he connected his rhetorical skill to his being Irish? Whatever the case, Lewis was a brilliant communicator.
Professor Steven Beebe reveals that nobody can fully appreciate the genius of Lewis without seeing the brilliance of Lewis’s skill as a communicator. Lewis’s scholarly books like The Allegory of Love and English Literature in the Sixteenth Century: Excluding Drama are masterpieces for their ability to follow a narrative thread through such a wide fabric of material. They hold a reader’s attention for ←xi | xii→their clarity, their imaginative depiction, and their delightful winsomeness. He was certainly a master communicator as an academic. Furthermore, The Chronicles of Narnia are stories admitted into the very canons of classical children’s literature, next to likes of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows, the Brothers Grimm, and Hans Christian Anderson. Lewis the master communicator could tell a story to delight the hearts of children. His storytelling skills also classify his science fiction among some of the best of that genre, such as Ray Bradbury and Isaac Asimov. How was it possible that he could communicate with such skill across such wide territory?
Lewis was also a scintillating debater. As the first president of the Oxford Socratic Club, he became what Oxford Philosopher Austin Farrer called “Oxford’s Bonny Fighter.” Lewis could stand on his own two feet and debate the best minds in Britain during the 1940s to mid-1950s. Nevertheless, his communication skills were not limited merely to oral communication; he was also highly capable when it came to debating in print. His dispute with Professor E. M. W Tillyard in The Personal Heresy is a noteworthy model of academic engagement. There are no ad hominem arguments in the book, no straw man arguments, virtually no informal fallacies to be found in the entire volume—just the arguments of two men who knew how to communicate effectively. He could preach too. I knew a woman who was present at St. Mary’s, the University Church at Oxford when Lewis delivered his sermon, “The Weight of Glory.” She said the pews were crammed full and the students filled all the floor space as well. Furthermore, his skill as a communicator was not reserved for public or formal occasions. I once received a letter from Lewis’s fellow Inkling, the Chaucer scholar Nevill Coghill, in which he said that as a conversationalist, Lewis was “a splendid talker, a lot like Dr. Johnson in bulk as well as in wit and learning.” It does not stop there; Lewis was also a disciplined letter writer. He said he answered all of his mail. And the letters were full of wisdom and insight. Consequently, those who received letters from him saved them. As a result, there are eight volumes of collected correspondence. He wrote to fellow academics, he wrote to friends, he wrote to readers of his books, he wrote thoughtful letters to children, with no sign of condescension. His letters are pithy and thought provoking; some are clearly pastoral and full of spiritual direction. It is not merely that he wrote letters, but that the range of topics he discusses is encyclopedic.
Lewis was a master communicator on every imaginable level. Was it simply because he was Irish? I doubt it. He certainly was gifted, and honed his gifts to a well-practiced skill. We may never be the communicator Lewis was; even so, there is much one can learn from him if attentive to his craft, and willing to cultivate the discipline to develop the skill. If this is the reader’s interest, then a guide would ←xii | xiii→be helpful. And I can think of no greater guide to define and clarify those elements that made Lewis a master communicator than Professor Steve Beebe. Dr. Beebe was the chairperson of one of the nation’s largest communication departments at Texas State University, in San Marcos, Texas. Arguably, he has authored as many college and university textbooks on communication as anybody. Furthermore, he was president of the National Communication Association, the largest academic association for communicators in the world. Their annual meetings each year are where the experts in communication go to learn from one another. If you are going to learn about government you would like to have Abraham Lincoln at your elbow. If you want to learn about leadership, who would not love to tag along with Sir Winston Churchill? If you want to learn about American football, John Madden is the man to guide you. If you want to learn about art, Makoto Fujimura would be a great guide. For acting, Kenneth Branagh or Mark Rylands are the ones to seek out. When it comes to communication, Steve Beebe is the one to facilitate the process of learning. Furthermore, when Beebe turns his attention to C. S. Lewis, the combination is unbeatable: Lewis the master communicator, and Beebe the master teacher.
Not all of us will become communicators like Lewis; not all of us can teach like Beebe; but all of us can grow in skill. As Beebe reminds us, communication is audience centered. A good communicator speaking truth always gives hope to his or her audience. Professor Beebe gives double the hope. First, he points us to Lewis, whose written and oral communication is flush with hope. Furthermore, I know firsthand that Dr. Beebe is also a man whose insights and instruction breathe hope. When I sat for my doctoral defense at the Oxford Center for Mission Studies in Oxford, England, Steve Beebe was by my side. He was one of two supervisors