Becoming a conversational partner with people and the Holy Spirit

     I read the scriptures as if they were written by my best friend or brother—sometimes He will have a special message in it for me. The more I really know his character, that is Jesus’, and the more I really want to hear from him, the better the chance is that I’ll hear what it is that my brother is saying to me, if anything.  As the writers of the Psalms say they do, I meditate on his writings. I ruminate on them. I consider certain parts in them that keep coming back to me, even in the watches of the night (see Psalms 119). I have a daily ongoing conversation with my brother and so if he has a specific message for me it will usually be along our topics of conversation or certain terms we’ve been using together. I look for their double meaning—one meaning written to someone thousands of years ago and one like it written to me.

      I believe when we learn to really listen to each other, we develop the same skill set necessary to hear the voice of God. I think the communication happens on the “same channel,” as it were. Of course we will still have miscommunications but love is not easily offended (1 Cor 13:5, NKJV). This is one reason why it is so important for Christians to be good conversationalists.  And, as I recently realized, I wouldn’t be surprised if there were a direct correlation between those who can recognize God’s voice among the many voices and those who are good conversationalists. 

     However, just because someone seems to be a good conversationalist it doesn’t necessarily follow that they can hear God because you choose who you want to hear. And some people hear only themselves in others.  Here’s a perceptive quote that recognizes this fact from the beginning of the movie “Big Fish,” a movie about a son trying to learn about his dying father:

After that night, I didn't speak to my father again for three years. William Bloom, United Press International. If I could just...We communicated indirectly, I guess. In her letters and Christmas cards, my mother wrote for both of them. And when I'd call, she'd say Dad was out driving or swimming in the pool. True to form, we never talked about not talking. The truth is, I didn't see anything of myself in my father. And I don't think he saw anything of himself in me. We were like strangers who knew each other very well.

When we go looking for ourselves in others we don’t get to know those who are unlike us.

     So I’m thinking of reading through a well-regarded book on conversation skills alongside our rector’s Through the Bible Through the Year. It’s called “Conversationally Speaking: Tested New Ways to Increase Your Personal and Social Effectiveness” and written by a non-Christian as far as I can tell.

     Some may be wondering how this relates to Theology of the Body—I actually see conversation skills as very integral to it. I once heard a seminarian say in a discussion about the sexual failings in the Roman Catholic church that he thought that these happened primarily because men don’t know how to talk to women. Also, within the marital relationship, good conversation skills are critical to the sexual relationship becoming a two-way fulfilling union. Then, I’ve seen that my kids have surprisingly never struggled so far in the sexual realm because I believe they’ve learned how to have both male and female good friends without the relationship becoming something sexual. (More on friendship here.)

    Most importantly, Jesus had Mary and Martha as friends. To understand him and his ways and become like him we need to make conversational partners of those that are very different from us.