For about twelve years, I’ve visited a resident—let’s call her Gladys—at the same assisted living facility where my mother spent her last years. We used to talk about current events, revived memories, family circumstances and wisdom of all kinds. Now, with Gladys’s dementia working its will, the back-and-forth of a satisfying conversation might seem impossible. That’s not true, thoughMORE...
Every so often in conversations I find myself about to say something like “I used to…” Maybe the same urge comes to the surface in your conversations? If completed, the sentence would recount some skill or experience from our past that might be relevant to the subject at hand. Perhaps some part of our storied histories could add personal notes that would enrich the conversation. Perhaps our faithMORE...
Keep talking “Like father, like son.” If that’s true, I have inherited my father’s enjoyment of shared conversations with friends and colleagues. (My mother’s descriptive noun for him was Schnatterpeter—a Low German phrase meaning something like “one who likes to talk with others about relatively ordinary matters, a chatterbox.”) To the consternation of those around me, when I schnatter, I don’tMORE...
One of my enduring mantras goes something like this, “There’s no such thing as an idle conversation.” That’s why many of my verbal interchanges with other people end up being more than an exchange of pleasantries. In that vein of thinking, I’m pretty sure that there’s such a thing as “holy conversations,” those rare times when earnest exchanges become inspiring and inspired. It might even beMORE...
One of my enduring mantras goes something like this, “There’s no such thing as an idle conversation.” That’s why many of my verbal interchanges with other people end up being more than an exchange of pleasantries. In that vein of thinking, I’m pretty sure that there’s such a thing as “holy conversations,” those rare times when earnest exchanges become inspiring and inspired. It might evenMORE...
BOB SITZE has filled the many years of his lifework in diverse settings around the United States. His calling has included careers as a teacher/principal, church musician, writer/author, denominational executive staff member and meat worker. Bob lives in Wheaton, IL.