Conversation

WED., JAN. 11, 1989, 6:50 AM
FARM, STUDY

You are in the midst of writing a conversation with a man who has been dead for some years and who you know only through his writings. It is a good task you have set for yourself, and if you do it conscientiously it should provide a good concluding chapter to your project. Your decision to have it completed by the time you commence your teaching in the new term is a good one. You have the time and the discipline to finish it. You just have to think in conversation style.

This is not entirely foreign, for what you are doing right now is a form of conversation. You write as you hear Me in an inaudible form of speech. When you are concentrating well the result is a monologue, but most of the time you are interested enough in the theme to be offering, from your mind and spirit, inaudible questions and responses to what I am saying. And I respond to what I hear from you.

Now in one sense I prefer the monologue, the sermon, the lecture. I can relate to you in other less direct ways during the rest of each day of life, but this is My chance to tell you quite directly something I would have you know or understand better. The time is limited by your liturgy and the speed with which you write… and your relative inattention. I should have all of the time.

And yet I am a counselor and a good teacher rather than a lecturer. As a good teacher you rarely will give an hour lecture with no response at all from the learners. If you re in the midst of some counseling session you share the talking and listening with the counselee. So I respond to ideas you have… and I “plant” ideas that you form into questions, so that your interest is greater.

No two of these are exactly the same, in content or in process. Some are more conversation that others. Some cause you to respond, even as you are writing. (It is rather strange to be writing about what you are doing just now, which is writing.) I often enjoy the conversation style, even though you should write it in this non-conversation style. In other words, you write only what I say, not your contributions.

Recall that there have been Teachings containing quite a number of questions. You write these questions as if I were repeating what you are asking. This is as close as We get to a true conversational style. It is not something appropriate to every Teaching, but it has merit, and so questions will be included, when appropriate.

Your Sunday morning class commenced this week, and the conversation that developed out of that initial Teaching was excellent. Those Teachings that you and I select for a Sunday class shall have the capacity to stimulate a conversation and sustain it for the hour allotted. You are the facilitator, so your task is to keep the conversation flowing, but you may participate in it also, with caution not to dominate. Just have the faith that most of these Teachings can teach others, through this means of conversation.

Fairly often the theme for a Teaching comes from My Holy Scriptures. I want these Scriptures to be a natural part of human conversation. So I offer insights and interpretations that provide better understanding for you, and hence the chances are greater that you will bring this Scriptural passage into some conversation. Even in a greater way than these Teachings. My Scriptures have the capacity to be part of conversation. Unfortunately they have too often been presented in such a pious, didactic way that they never seem to radiate this conversational potential. These are Writings that have survived centuries, with relevance. They are part of many cultures.

Holy Scripture should be an easy part of conversation… a means of linking My most direct relationship with a designated people up with the life of the present. The Bible is the base, just as certain facts or a certain tangible experience can be the basis for a conversation. But the conversation develops out of responses and reactions to the base. I just desire that the words and experiences that make up these Scriptures be more a part of the conversation of Christian folk. These Teachings can help in this regard. Yes… go ahead and share this with the class this next Sunday… as an enticement to conversation.