Conversation, Day 176

Talk is fluid, tentative, continually in further search and progress; while written words remain fixed, become idols even to the writer, found wooden dogmatisms, and perverse flies of obvious error in the amber of the truth. –Robert Louis Stevenson

I’m wondering today why we as people in general do not spend more time discussing intellectual things. I feel that most of our conversing tends to be stories about people we know or events we’ve lived through. We talk about our jobs and the weather. We discuss food, music, television and movies. The occasional news story gets thrown in, sometimes political (rarely). But how often do we have discussions, intellectual thought provoking discussions? I never do, practically.

I began reading today and the very first thing that stood out to me was the idea that reading is second to conversation; that learning and growing really take place during discussion. But this idea in itself is depressing to me because I haven’t anyone to discuss with, or I feel as though I don’t. Generally we don’t spend a lot of time thinking beyond the norms which present themselves daily. Please correct me if I’m being overly critical.

When I’m with a group of people who I attend church with, let’s say at a coffee shop or sitting around someone’s living room I am always let down by the topic of conversation. Even Christians do not tend to casually discuss scripture, Jesus, or the goodness of God unless they’re in a structural setting such as a Bible study. Honestly this bothers me immensely. When I’m with Christians I want to talk about scripture. I do. I love the Bible. I love reading it. I love studying it. I love thinking about it. I love talking about it. But for some reason, generally we don’t. We just don’t.

Equally so when we converse with anyone shouldn’t we spend more time talking about life? Not about the lives other people are living but about life processes; feelings, ideas, concepts, life! But we don’t. We just don’t.

I even feel a bit awkward with many of my posts because I wonder to myself who would want to read this rambling of ideas. I haven’t anyone to discuss these things with and yet I expect someone to be interested in reading my thoughts. It’s weird, or possibly very normal. But it saddens me. I would love for someone to instead ask not, “how are you today,” in that quick uncaring uninterested tone, but rather, “what’s on your mind today,” with interest, desire, concern, and a hunger to converse.

This flaw in our conversational styles leaves me excited about books even if they happen to contain fixed written words, ‘the foodstuff of unintelligent fundamentalisms.’

For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good things, and an evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth evil things. But I say to you that for every idle word men may speak, they will give account of it in the day of judgment. For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned. Matt 12:34-37

Idle word: argos rhema - in the Greek means 'any spoken thing which is free from labor, at leisure, or lazy.'
Day 27, a past blog about searching for truth