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Conversations Matter – Share Your Life

Continuing Conversations Matter, reflecting on THE SIX CONVERSATIONS: Pathways to 
Connecting in an Age of Isolation and Incivility
 by Heather Holleman.

In Simple Terms, If I Were To Tell You The Four Most Critical Things To Do To Foster A Warm And Connected Conversation, I’d Say This: 
Be Curious 
* Believe The Best 
* Express Concern 
*
Share Your Life

In The Art of Positive Communication, professor of Applied Communication Julien Mirivel tells us the seven behaviors needed in a great conversation. Besides greeting, asking questions, complimenting, encouraging, listening, and inspiring, great conversations involve disclosing personal information.

According to the research on the three best strategies to create relational closeness, openness—the “willingness to share personal information” and not “withhold private information” matters deeply. The other two behaviors—attention and involvement—relate to the mindset of investment. When we’re invested and share our lives, we’ll find we’re on our way to truly meaningful conversations with others.

Holleman, Heather. The Six Conversations (p. 36). Moody Publishers. Kindle Edition.

SHARE YOUR LIFE

…think of the famous quote from C. S. Lewis, who writes that all friendship comes from that moment when someone says, “What? You too? I thought I was the only one.” When you share mutually, you find the connection on which all great relationships depend.

Mutual Sharing


Conversation is a two-way street. Sharing one’s life creates vulnerability. Mutuality deters relational power imbalances which can occur when only one person shares.
One-sided disclosure inhibits cognitive interdependence —necessary for great conversations.
(the tendency of individuals in close, committed relationships to think of themselves less in individual terms and more as partners in a dyadic relationship)
Charles Taylor observed: “Sociability as conversation could suggest a model of society as mutual exchange rather than hierarchical order”

Mutual sharing clashes with the notion we must do without support, which is ingrained in our nation’s culture. Our most toxic myth is our “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” individualism. Enlightenment notions of individual autonomy, independence, rights, freedom and liberty run deep in the American consciousness and impede mutual sharing. An antidote to individualism is “The art of dependence” — which means accepting aid with grace and, crucially, recognizing the importance of others. It takes dignity and skill to lean on friends, loved ones and colleagues…

Mutual sharing creates questions about personal boundaries. Boundaries, though necessary, should not be impermeable. In encounters with others, boundaries are always crossed, in fact, even if only minimally. People and communities with dynamic identities will have firm but permeable boundaries. With such boundaries, encounters with others don’t serve only to assert our position and claim our territory; they are also occasions to learn and to teach, to be enriched and to enrich, to come to new agreements and maybe reinforce the old ones, and to dream up new possibilities and explore new paths.

Share Your Life
Personal assessment:
I love to share my life with other people: Rarely | Sometimes | Almost always

Reflect: Why do you think you feel this way? What happened to make you this kind of person? What’s your next step in developing this skill? What resistance or hesitation do you have to this conversational skill?

Holleman, Heather. The Six Conversations (p. 39).

STILL ON THE JOURNEY


So Much To Think About

Living to 100
Experts don’t mince words: as many as half of today’s five year olds in the U.S. will live to 100. Are we ready?


Vocation
It comes from the Latin vocare, to call, and means the work a person is called to by God. There are all different kinds of voices calling you to all different kinds of work, and the problem is to find out which is the voice of God rather than of Society, say, or the Super-ego, or Self-Interest. By and large a good rule for finding out is this. The kind of work God usually calls you to is the kind of work (a) that you need most to do and (b) that the world most needs to have done. . . . The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.
Fredrick Buchner 


From fame to honor
The remedy for shame is not becoming famous. It is not even being affirmed. It is being incorporated into a community with new, different, and better standards for honor. It’s a community where weakness is not excluded but valued; where honor-seeking and “boasting” of all kinds are repudiated; where servants are raised up to sit at the table with those they once served; where even the ultimate dishonor of the cross is transformed into glory, the ultimate participation in honor. To use the powerful biblical metaphor, the gospel offers adoption—a new status as “sons,” to use the intentionally gendered, high-status word of Romans 8—to both men and women, now members of the family of the firstborn Son.
Andy Crouch


Community and Intimacy with God
Dietrich Bonhoeffer—in his book on community, Life Together, suggested that sometimes the psychological energy from being with a group of people can displace true trust in God for many. He suggested that we must learn to be alone with God, which is different from loneliness, for us to become whole and to not confuse the energies of friendship and community with intimacy with God.
Who doesn’t want moral support? Who doesn’t need friends when the heart is most challenged to affirm our vocation, our calling, and to remind us who we are?
Jesus doesn’t want it, that’s who. Not at this moment. He knows it’s time to be in the solitary place, the wild, the alone.


Desert Experience

One does not have to move to the geographical location of the wilderness in order to find God. Yet, if you do not have to go to the desert, you do have to go through the desert…. The desert is a necessary stage on the spiritual journey. To avoid it would be harmful. To dress it up or conceal it may be tempting; but it also proves destructive in the spiritual path.
Ironically, you do not have to find the desert in your life; it normally catches up with you. Everyone does go through the desert…. It may be in the form of some suffering, or emptiness, or breakdown, or breakup, or divorce, or any kind of trauma that occurs in our life. Dressing this desert up through our addictions or attachments—to material goods, or money, or food, or drink, or success, or obsessions, or anything else we may care to turn toward or may find available to depend upon—will delay the utter loneliness and the inner fearfulness of the desert experience. If we go through this experience involuntarily, then it can be both overwhelming and crushing. If, however, we accept to undergo this experience voluntarily, then it can prove both constructive and liberating.
Richard Rohr


Virtue
In “The Sovereignty of Good,” the novelist and philosopher Iris Murdoch writes that “virtue is the attempt to pierce the veil of selfish consciousness and join the world as it really is.”


Searching Scripture
Rather than a vehicle for knowing God and fostering our communion with him, we search the Scriptures for applicable principles that we may employ to control our world.
..Jethani, Skye. With (p. 51).


“Religion is for people who are afraid of going to hell; spirituality is for those who have been there.”
Rohr, Richard. Breathing Under Water: Spirituality and the Twelve Steps (p. 33).


View from the back deck
We had an uneventful return from Florida, arriving Thursday am. March in Kentucky is never dull. On Friday we experienced unprecedented weather (seems like that’s the only kind we have these days) with 80mph winds. The low pressure system set a record low barometric reading. Our back yard is filled with our neighbors tree. No damage other than the fence. I was able to secure our carriage house metal roof before it blew off. We lost power around 3:30 pm yesterday and it has still not been restored. Our daughter has power so we have a handy refuge.
After seeing the hurricane impact in Florida and hearing the difficulties people are still encountering, our situation is insignificant. The impact on Kentucky is significant, adding to last year’s tornados and flooding.
We are thankful for our good fortune.

STILL ON THE JOURNEY

Conversations Matter – Express Concern

Continuing Conversations Matter, reflecting on THE SIX CONVERSATIONS: Pathways to 
Connecting in an Age of Isolation and Incivility
 by Heather Holleman.

In Simple Terms, If I Were To Tell You The Four Most Critical Things To Do To Foster A Warm And Connected Conversation, I’d Say This: 
Be Curious 
* Believe The Best 
*
Express Concern 
* Share Your Life

If you’re learning to be curious about others and you’ve trained your mind to begin with positive regard, you’ll find that conversations might still lack the warmth and meaning you’re hoping for.

Express Concern

“Bless your Heart” does not count!

“Bless your heart” a phrase common to the Southern United States, is the product of an honor shame culture primarily concerned about how you are perceived by others. The double-edged use of the phrase is a way to give a little jab to others without acting ugly … because southerners never act ugly.

The phrase has multiple meanings and is used to express genuine sympathy but sometimes as an insult that conveys condescension, derision, or contempt. It may also be spoken as a precursor to an insult to mitigate its severity. Meanings range from “you are dumb but can’t help it” to “f**k you” and are primarily imparted through context and tone. While common in the South, it is primarily used by individuals who wish to “be sweet” and do not wish to “act ugly.”

Wikipedia

Reflecting on expressions of concern for others in my conversations, I recognize the influence of my southern heritage and its honor shame culture. While I avoid “bless your heart”, there are other expressions that come in handy:
—”Interesting…” —”What did you do?”— “Oh, man (dear)! — ” I am praying for you.” —
to name a few; any one may be either innocent or disingenuous. The challenge I find in having meaningful, loving conversations; is more than words, it is about who we are and the intent of our hearts. Only if we authentically care about others will loving conversations happen.

Words kill, words give life;
    they’re either poison or fruit—you choose.
Prov 18:21 MSG

INVESTMENT
I appreciate Holleman’s characterization of “express concern” as investment. Expressing concern that fosters warm and connected conversations is not about being “sweet” or not being “ugly”; it is an investment.
Investment means you’re interested in the outcome of what a person shares with you, and you express concern about their lives. You’re devoting time and energy because you care about what happens to the other person. You’re invested in their lives. You’re listening in order to support, encourage, and inspire. Investment also implies a gain on behalf of both parties. You link their success with your success, their failure with your failure, their sadness with yours. Investment is a form of support that moves beyond empathy; it’s a willingness to “carry each other’s burdens…”

In a recent study on how people“mutually responsive close relationships,” researchers stated that “an optimal relationship starts with it being a relationship in which people assume a special responsibility for one another’s welfare.” I’m learning when I engage in loving conversations with others, communicating investment makes all the difference in the quality of connection. I’m learning when I engage in loving conversations with others, communicating investment makes all the difference in the quality of connection. Therefore, we can express concern about what someone is going through. Consider this: your friend might be genuinely curious about you and like you, but if he doesn’t really care about the information you’re sharing with him, you won’t feel the connection and warmth you otherwise could.

Expressing concern is perhaps t\he hardest skill of all because it involves the wisdom to know what to do and how to help with the information someone shares with you in conversation. Investment doesn’t mean to take on everyone’s problems as your own, but it does mean you position yourself to support others as you can, to care about them, and to imagine an interconnectedness with their lives. It’s a way to live communally and joyfully so that you genuinely celebrate with others just as you would mourn with them.

The Six Conversations

I am reminded of what I heard in the podcast:

“The most loving thing we can do is have meaningful conversations.”

If that is true, and I believe it is; the implications for discipling and discipleship are far-reaching and worthy of further consideration.

Resources:
The Return of Shame – Andy Crouch
Where Does the South End and Christianity Begin? – David French
Shame, Honor, And The South – The American Conservative
Culture of honor (Southern United States) – Wikipedia
Honor, shame, and the Gospel in the American South: Part I

STILL ON THE JOURNEY

So Much To Think About


There ought to be a law
..keep a close eye on Florida’s upcoming legislative session. If Democratic State Sen. Lauren Book’s proposed bill prohibiting dogs from extending their “head or any other body part outside a motor vehicle window” becomes law, we’re going to have some issues.


Solving America’a Drug Addiction Problem
Harm Reduction – a change in how all Americans view people who use drugs.
OnPoint, a local nonprofit that provides care for people who take drugs, are using an approach called harm reduction. Their focus is on minimizing the consequences of drug use rather than trying to eradicate it. This includes offering people clean needles to prevent disease as well as overdose reversal medications. For the past year the organization has been operating the country’s first official supervised consumption site, where people can use the drugs they bring under the oversight of trained staff.
As the Times editorial board argues today, “That means accepting that people who use drugs are still members of our communities and are still worthy of compassion and care. It also means acknowledging the needs and wishes of people who don’t use drugs, including streets free of syringe litter and neighborhoods free of drug-related crime. These goals are not mutually exclusive. In fact, they go hand in hand. NYT 2-22-2023


Congregational Size
“There is a lot to say about congregational size, but one fact is fundamental: most congregations are small, but most people are in large congregations,” according to a 2021 National Congregations Study report.1 “In 2018–19, the median congregation had only 70 regular participants, counting both adults and children, and an annual budget of $100,000. At the same time, the average attendee worshipped in a congregation with 360 regular participants and a budget of $450,000.” This consolidation of believers, according to Chaves, means that “half of the money, people and staff” can be found in about 9 percent of Protestant congregations. The top 1 percent of churches by themselves have about 20 percent of the people and resources.
Reorganized Church: The Reshaping of the American Church and Why it matters


Wonder
St. Gregory of Nyssa asserts, “Only wonder understands anything.” The role of wonder is (among other things) to slow us down, make us quiet, and help us pay attention. The “flat-landers” sail prosaically through life and miss most of what is true, drawing only the most obvious conclusions, even when what is obvious is incorrect. It is the things that are “out of place” that are easily ignored (they’re so bothersome!), while they are most often the clues that reveal the mystery.
Fr Stephen Freeman


Social trust
in the early 1970s half of Americans said that most people can be trusted; today that figure is less than one-third. And a recent Pew poll found that social trust declines sharply from generation to generation. In 2018, around 29% of Americans over 65 said that most people can’t be trusted, while 60% of Americans 18 to 29 agree. Recent research suggests that social trust levels harden with age, meaning that trust will continue to fall as trusting generations are replaced by mistrustful ones.


Bragging
Walter Brueggemann offers God’s message through Jeremiah to those bragging:

Let those who boast boast in this, that they understand and know me,
that I am the Lord; I act with steadfast love, justice, and righteousness
in the earth, for in these things I delight, says the Lord….


Life on the Porch

On the first day, God created the dog and said, “Sit all day by the door of your house, and bark at anyone who comes in or walks past. For this I will give you a life span of twenty years.”  

The dog said, “That’s a long time to be barking.  How about only ten years, and I’ll give you back the other ten?” 

 And God said that it was good. 

 On the second day, God created the monkey and said, “Entertain people, do tricks, and make them laugh. For this, I’ll give you a twenty-year life span.”   

The monkey said, “Monkey tricks for twenty years? That’s a pretty long time to perform. How about I give you back ten like the dog did?”  

 And God again said that it was good. 

On the third day, God created the cow and said, “You must go into the field with the farmer all day long, and suffer under the sun, have calves, and give milk to support the farmer’s family. For this, I will give you a life span of sixty years.” 

The cow said, “That’s kind of a tough life you want me to live for sixty years. How about twenty, and I’ll give back the other forty?”  

And God agreed it was good. 

On the fourth day, God created humans and said, “Eat, sleep, play, marry and enjoy your life. For this, I’ll give you twenty years.”  

But the human said, “Only twenty years? Could you possibly give me my twenty, the forty the cow gave back, the ten the monkey gave back, and the ten the dog gave back; that makes eighty, okay?  

 “Okay,” said God, “You asked for it.” 

So that is why for our first twenty years, we eat, sleep, play and enjoy ourselves. For the next forty years, we slave in the sun to support our family. For the next ten years, we do monkey tricks to entertain the grandchildren. And for the last ten years, we sit on the front porch and bark at everyone. 

Life has now been explained to you. 

There is no need to thank me for this valuable information. I’m doing it as a public service. If you are looking for me, I’ll be on the front porch.

Unknown


View from the Lanai
This is my final “view from the lanai” for this winter. We return to Wilmore on March 2. Hopefully the weather will cooperate and the front porch will be open soon.
As usual, warm weather is a highlight of our time here. We have not been disappointed.However, Red Tide has been present more than past years.
Getting to know neighbors around meals and conversation is especially enjoyable and helps stave off homesickness.
Hurricane Ian impacted a lot of people. Seeing the damage and hearing their stories and resilience has been encouraging.
As we get older, our window of opportunity to travel to Florida narrows. We are committed to return next year, beyond that is TBD. (truthfully, next year is TBD, like most everything else at this point.)


STILL ON THE JOURNEY

Conversations Matter – Believe the Best

Continuing Conversations Matter, reflecting on THE SIX CONVERSATIONS: Pathways to
Connecting in an Age of Isolation and Incivility
by Heather Holleman.

In Simple Terms, If I Were To Tell You The Four Most Critical Things To Do To Foster A Warm And Connected Conversation, I’d Say This: 
Be Curious 
* Believe The Best 
* Express Concern 
* Share Your Life

Without positive regard (believing the best), our attempts at curiosity won’t make much difference. I’ve known people who act curious about my life for self-serving reasons; they want morsels to gossip about or ways to trap me in opinions they want to disparage. Or they just run through a list of questions because they are trying to connect out of duty or because it feels like a good leadership skill to ask a good question. Worse, I know they don’t necessarily like me or wish to warmly connect; they want to talk for argument’s sake. But when someone asks questions rooted in genuine interest from a position of love and respect, I love to open up to this person.

In simple terms, positive regard means you position yourself to respect, admire, like, and enjoy the person with whom you’re in conversation.

The Six Conversations

At this point, I am of the opinion that Believing the Best may be the most challenging of the four most critical things to do to foster a warm and connected conversation. Let me explain:

Some years ago I came across this quote from A.W. Tozer: “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.”. I believe that is an essential truth. If what comes into our minds about God is incorrect, our relationship with God and its demonstration in our lives will not be experienced to its fullest, if at all. The intricacies and implications of knowing God are beyond this post, but it sets up my point about believing the best.

Back to “Believing the Best”.
Repurposing Tozer’s quote
” What comes into our minds when we think about the other person is the most important thing when it comes to warm and connected conversations”.
Without positive regard for the other person, conversation will not achieve its full potential, or, perhaps, any benefit at all, or, worse, be damaging.
…imagine what it feels like to enter into a conversation with someone who you feel judges you, who criticizes you, and who is looking for ways to put you down, improve you, or change you. Nobody wants to open up in an environment like this.

Trust is a prerequisite to believe the best about someone. Unfortunately, trust is becoming more and more scarce in our polarized and divisive society.

…in the early 1970s half of Americans said that most people can be trusted; today that figure is less than one-third. And a recent Pew poll found that social trust declines sharply from generation to generation. In 2018, around 29% of Americans over 65 said that most people can’t be trusted, while 60% of Americans 18 to 29 agree. Recent research suggests that social trust levels harden with age, meaning that trust will continue to fall as trusting generations are replaced by mistrustful ones.

I am confident “Believe the Best” is necessary and appropriate in fostering meaningful and healthy conversations. I am not confident “the best” is what comes into our minds of most of us when we think about others.
“Give the benefit of the doubt” or similar sentiments are not a part of today’s lexicon. As seen in the data above there is not much reason for optimism that attitudes toward each other will improve.
I would argue that “believe the best” is an attribute of Christ followers. Ironically, it seems many who profess to be Christians choose to not to give the benefit of the doubt nor believe the best; which may explain why warm and connected conversations are an anomaly for many Christians.

Hopefully, observations in this post will stimulate self-examination as it has for me.
Consider:
Reflecting on what first comes into your mind about the other people.
Ask if your first impulse is to believe he best? Give the benefit of the doubt?
If not, why is that so and how can it be changed?

Heather Holleman offers this advice:

When I’m having trouble choosing to believe the best about someone because of their actions or attitudes that I may find morally reprehensible, I try to think of what this person was like as a child. I remember to discover the story behind why this person feels or acts as they do. Then I find myself overcome with compassion rather than condemnation.

The SixConversations pg.30

STILL ON THE JOURNEY