A Few Late Night Questions

Where do we go to speak our mind?

Or to have the minds we feel compelled to speak actually heard?

And is speaking and/or" being heard" the real goal of such work?

What does it mean to have "holy conversations"?

I'm asking these questions because I sense that there are so few (relatively speaking) conversations in our lives. Oh sure, we exchange information with each other. In our culture we are always talking (or texting or skyping, or facebooking). But how do those exchanges impact us? Are we drawn deeper into the mystery that is human relationship? Or are those exchanges more transactional (I give you this in exchange for you giving me that) than relational?

The fifth century monk, Benedict, who bequeathed to the Christian Church his Rule for monks living in community, clearly saw the necessity for learning in the "school of the Lord". Benedict's idea of a school wasn't simply about the individual assimilation of information for the purpose of mastering the information and leveraging it for self-improvement and personal advancement. Benedict saw the necessity of engaging with other human beings as a primary way of engaging with God. Through our work with others, our worship with others and having our lives intertwined with others' lives, we learn what it means to be human beings...and we experience "conversion".

For Benedict, conversion of life wasn't some momentary, supernatural jolt that propelled us into the stratosphere of spirituality. Rather, this conversion of life grows within us as we attend to the most basic tasks of relationship. Every task or chore, undertaken with another in the community or alone on behalf of the members of the community, has the potential to open one's awareness to the movement of the Spirit within one's own life.

Earlier today I received the unexpected gift of what I will name as a "holy conversation". It unfolded and meandered over the course of two hours. Sometimes punctuated with great emotion and other times interrupted with spontaneous laughter, the conversation seemed to take on a life of its own. When the conversation concluded, none of the "presenting issues" which prompted the conversation in the first place had been solved, but somehow something was different. I was certainly different. So what made the conversation holy?

Did we speak directly about God or learn a new fact about the Bible? No.

Did we talk about the Church politics and/or debate the finer points of liturgy? No.

Did we even pray together? No.

Yet, upon reflection, I believe the Spirit was hovering (dare I say brooding?) over this conversation. And by the end of it, in some way, each of us was changed -- even though neither of us could readily explain how. But the experience has left me with plenty of questions about our societal (and my own incessant) drive toward efficiency and the "saving of time". Today taught me a lesson about spending time and the result was yet another opportunity to experience conversion.