It seems to me that a good deal of “religious” conversation boils down to two things.  The first is conversation as reporting.  This usually comes from a good place, a place of some interest and concern.  Sometimes it can grow into a full conversation, but often it remains a shallow (but necessary) check-in.  And sometimes it can lead to the second kind of conversation: conversation for recruitment.  Because there are always needs, especially in any organization with strong non-profit/volunteer-dependent work to do.  I imagine we have all been on both sides of this kind of conversation.  It’s one of the things I grew tired of that led to my “long epilogue” period a while ago.

I’d like to think we’re all hoping and longing for something more in our “religious” conversations (or just conversations in general . . . unless we can accept that all conversations have an underlying religious nature to them).  One of the last things I’d like to mention from The Soul of Desire by Curt Thompson has to do with what we really want, what we’re always looking for, in relationships and conversations.  They are mentioned throughout the book without ever really getting a full explanation (as best as I can recall or as my notes reflect), but one you see them, they make sense.

Thompson suggests that there are four things that we are always looking for but that they are actually “relational in nature . . . not so much something we acquire as something we share with others.”  That’s an interesting nuance, realizing that you can’t “catch them all” and keep them for yourself.  That leaves them fleeting, fragile, and ultimately dependent on others.  These four things he calls the Four S’s: being seen, soothed, safe, and secure.  In healthy relationships, we are not invisible, not irritated, don’t feel endangered by the immediate, and don’t feel like we have to look over our shoulders to the periphery.  I don’t think the four S’s mean that we are being coddled; there’s something about this list that feels more like solid ground for real action than anything else.

Interestingly enough, the friars at the Poco a Poco podcast often use some of these words, or at least the sense of them, when they talk about how we relate to God.  You can find a couple of examples in this podcast on loneliness and this one on being chosen.  I do think our very human need for this things (and what we do when we can’t find them) speaks powerfully of the way that God has designed us while also reminding us how fragile these vital things are.  We’re looking for them even when we don’t realize it,  hoping to find it everywhere we turn.  Where else better to find them than in our “religious conversations”?