"Conversations"

"It was impossible to get a conversation going, everybody was talking too much." ~ Yogi Berra

Life is made up of conversations ... even for those among us who are introverts, unless you are a hermit or someone living under a monastic vow of silence.

Have you even stopped to consider just how many different types of non-conversations you are part of over a week?

There is the person who is either talking about the last place they traveled to or has moved on to talking about the next destination on their calendar. We all know someone who you quickly learned NEVER to ask how they are feeling, unless you have the time and patience to listen for the next half hour or so. Hours can be wasted gossiping about what so-and-so is doing ... or not doing, without there having to be a shred of truth in any of it.Then there the soap opera devotees who replay the same scenario over and over and over again, milking every bit of pathos out of it that they can.And, oh yes, there are those who love to related what terrible, unfeeling things others have done or said to them, and how they didn't deserve any of it.

We have all not only been party to these conversations, we have instigated them ourselves. No one is above reproach here...

When looking up the definition of 'conversation', this is what I found: 'The definition of a conversation is a sharing of thoughts and ideas.' Sharing can be seen, also according to the dictionary, as a reciprocal relation between interdependent entities (objects or individuals or groups). None of these examples that I have given above fit into a  reciprocal relation. Too often they involve one person listening [or not] while the other does the bulk of the talking.

And isn't that how much of our conversation about theology, about the important things of life often happens too. We seldom have the opportunity to sit down with someone and discuss those things that have deep meaning in our lives. We watch the evening news to hear what the news anchor or the politicians of the day want us to hear. We are all too used to sitting in church while someone up at the front tells us what we are to think. Or if we are students, too often we sit in classrooms, again being spoon-fed from the front.

The conversations that really matter are those where the participants allow themselves to be vulnerable; to talk about themselves and what they feel and believe; where each person hears the other and values their input without needing to agree with it. Really being heard and valued for their contribution to the conversation is one of the most powerful gifts we can give another person. Both participants come alive in such an exchange.

 What we talk about defines who we are and what is important to us. What do your conversations this past week say about who you are?