Human beings are communal animals. We don’t form ourselves into packs, or hives, or herds, but we need each other. I think it wouldn’t be wrong to call a group of humans a Conversation. On our bad days, maybe an Argument. Because humans don’t just form up around hunting prey, or sharing work, we create communities around ideas.
What is religion if not a prolonged conversation between a group of humans about (and in some cases with) that which is Other than we. A complex set of stories, arguments, and lived out conversations about what it means to be the kind of people who relate to each other, the world, and the Divine in a particular way.
And despite what some grumps the last few years might like us to think, those Conversations, those communities of humans, have never been restricted to just the people around you in physical space. While our conversations flowed more slowly in the past flow they did, back and forth across continents and centuries as these long human conversations rolled on.
From Paul writing to scattered communities of early Jesus followers (or Paul followers), to the philosophical debates of ancient Buddhist teachers, to evolving folk tales retold anew by each generation, to the arguments across centuries between Jewish rabbis with their texts, each other, and especially God. We are beings who make meaning with words. Not only words of course, art can be tactile, visual, auditory, but words hold a special place in the way we feel connected to other humans.
You probably have friends with whom you share certain “in” jokes, little turns of phrase that are meaningless, or have entirely different meaning, to everyone else. But your group gets it. Those jokes become a way of knowing who we are, and whose we are.
It is important to note that a conversation doesn’t assume agreement. In fact, some difference in thought and experience is generally needed for a conversation to be at all interesting. I imagine you might enjoy the first 30 seconds of everyone agreeing that mint chocolate chip ice cream is the best ice cream flavor but after that there wouldn’t be much left to talk about.
We live in a society that equates difference of opinion with argument, anger, or outright schism. There is an assumption that people who disagree on anything more important than ice cream flavors cannot possibly stay in relationship with one another, or have a conversation, they will only ever have an argument (and often not even that.)
Which is a sad loss. Because we learn the most from people with whom we’ve had different experiences. Who see life from a different perspective, who honestly think and believe differently than we do. That shouldn’t be surprising, and yet it often is. The difference of course is respect. To have a conversation everyone involved has to actually respect the humanity and intelligence of the other participants.
If I hate you it will be very hard for me to listen to you.
If I assume you are acting in bad faith, it will also be difficult for me to listen to you.
If I believe you are an idiot I’m going to dismiss what you have to say.
There are therefore limits on community, including religious community, but they might not be what we expect. I and another Christian could disagree on just about any point of church polity, liturgical practice, even most theology. But if we disagree on the basic dignity that humans should be afforded we are probably at an impasse. Our conversation, and therefore our ability to be in community, is going nowhere.
After all, beliefs change (The Religious Case Against Belief is recommended reading), the conversation evolves, but the basic right of each person to exist and to contribute to that conversation must be respected or the conversation ceases to be such. It becomes a lecture, a monologue.
And conversation is itself a spiritual practice.
Don’t believe me? What is reading scripture (any scripture) if not a conversation between the text, the reader, and a host of possible other participants (including the current context, events, cultural background, other readers, tradition, etc). What is liturgy but an evolving conversation in physical form? What is prayer if not a conversation between the one praying and the Divine (however that is understood)? What is meditation but the attempt to be quiet enough to hear our conversation partner (be that the Divine, Universe, Oneness, Inner Truth, etc)?
To practice conversation is to practice community, it requires that we make space for the other, that we learn to quiet ourselves enough to hear someone (anyone) else speak. And that we be the kind of person who is safe to speak to.
I recently listened to a conversation between two therapists on the difference between reaction and response. And boiled down, the difference was the pause. The ability to make space is what lets us respond instead of simply reacting to stimuli and it is that same skill that allows us to participate in conversation and community. The ability to pause, to make space, to listen. Not to reply though we might eventually respond, but for the means of getting to know someone better. To hear their thoughts, to learn something new.
Our conversations and communities will invariably overlap, they will form a complex network that, thanks to technology, might span the whole of the world. But they must still, to be true conversation, must be rooted in respect, curiosity, and compassion.
