Toward the end of my conversation in The Meetinghouse last week, I asked a question.

 

“What spiritual discipline has been important to your journey and to your success?”

 

My guest was a distinguished state university chancellor who had just published a book about communication. But she is also a Christian, a scholar of Christian preaching with several published books, and the wife of a Methodist minister.

 

I was expecting something, but not what she said.

 

“Conversation,” she said.

 

“Seeking out conversation … has been a soul feeder,” she explained. “I am a question-asker, a curious person….”

 

I was not expecting it because nowhere else in the “spiritual disciplines” literature is there an affirmation of conversation as something holy, and essential, and anointed.

 

There are other things, like those described in The Spirit of the Disciplines by the late Dallas Willard: solitude and silence, prayer, simple and sacrificial living, meditation upon God’s word and ways, and service to others. Or the very similar list proposed by the equally influential and very much alive Richard Foster and used by his vast Renovare network: meditation, prayer, fasting, study, simplicity, solitude, submission, service, confession, worship, guidance, and celebration.

 

Another of the 38 million sites on the web listed these: meditation, prayer, fasting, simplicity, fellowship, journaling, chastity, stewardship.

Yes, fellowship and worship and service all sound like things that involve others; but mostly these spiritual practices are solo enterprises. Especially solitude, silence, prayer, meditation, fasting, journaling, and certainly chastity.

 

But conversation?

 

Yes, maybe in a confessional booth or in seeking or giving guidance or in teaching. But not in the sense of ordinary vocal intercourse between people, of the common practice of talking with another person, of revealing what is on your mind and listening to what is on theirs.

 

I should have guessed as much of Dr. Lori Carrell, my broadcast guest. Her book Communication for a Change begins with the acknowledgement that the book is “written by talkers who believe in conversation for its own sake.” In her handwritten note on the front flyleaf, she wrote to me by name: “Thank you for the many wonderful conversations.”

 

Toward the end of her book, she references the famous book by Martin Buber, I and Thou, with its central thesis: “only through dialogue can we become fully human.” Earlier in that chapter, she describes communication through conversation: “it clarifies and shapes thought,” she writes, “ connects people and ideas, and provides the opportunity for influence, learning, and even change.”

 

And even earlier: “Think too about how to converse with both candor and empathy. To be clear while also demonstrating cultural humility. To advocate while also listening, modifying your words to integrate what you’ve just heard. To change one’s mind midsentence, as the process of speaking clarifies your thought. To deepen a relationship through the vulnerability of self-disclosure, tuned to nuances of response. To apologize and make lasting amends. To learn while teaching.”

 

If this is not a discipline of the spirit, of the human spirit, of the human soul and body, I don’t know what is.

 

As I read her words and listened to her answer, I thought about Jesus: his conversations with the scholars in the temple when he was 12 years old and his conversations with the disciples on the road to Emmaus; his conversations with the woman at the well, with the man who came at night, and with his followers on a retreat near Caesarea Philippi. He even had, as I recall, conversations with others hanging on their own cross beside his.

 

I do not remember any gospel evidence of Jesus writing a journal or keeping a fast or making a confession or even joining a celebration (except that wedding in Cana). I suppose he was chaste, but the texts never say, and there is reason to think he engaged in corporate worship, but the evidence for this is also very thin.

 

But conversation—he was good at that, the accounts clearly demonstrate, and he did it frequently. In fact, as much as preaching and teaching, his practice of talking with people and listening to people characterized his ministry and shaped his legacy. Perhaps even constituted his very mission!

 

For Jesus, conversation was a spiritual discipline. It was holy conversation, somebody said to me this morning; and I agree.

 

I had never thought about conversation in this way. Too many of the more established spiritual disciplines favor people of a certain sort: introverts, quiet people, folk who like to be alone and still, who can meditate by themselves for, well, longer than I can, for sure!

 

Like Dr. Carrell, I am a talker. I still hold my elementary school record for writing the most times “I will not talk.” But maybe, in this way, we are both more like Jesus than we thought. Maybe this is why I have found my calling hosting “conversations on religion and American life.”

 

And maybe my dialogue last week with Dr. Carrell in The Meetinghouse will be yet another mind-changing, life-affirming conversation, like others that have punctuated (and empowered) my spiritual pilgrimage from the very first day.

 

Thank you, Dr. Carrell.

 

Let’s talk again real soon!

 

(November 2021)