The joy of slow conversations

I enjoy the slow speed of conversations with my friend Dan. How slow? Well, something like this:

"How has your week been?"



Silence.



Lots of silence before the answer. During this silence, things can be done. For example: add the basil leaves to the Pho noodles that were just served us; pour the various dipping sauces into their respective little plates; go over a mental list of other items to bring up with Dan ...

All this while, Dan is deep in thought.

(I must admit: sometimes during these silences I would glance across the table to be sure he heard the question ... But he always has).

It just takes him a blue moon to get the answer out. It's as if the Riddle of Life had just been presented to him, and he wants to be sure he gives the answer a good shot.

There he is, mulling it over, eyebrows furrowed, hand rubbing chin in variations of Rodin's Thinker.

Ready, Aim, Aim, Aim. Aim some more. And then, finally, FIRE:

"Are you familiar with the book written by ..."

And then it's off to the races. Not the tortoise and the hare sort of race. No. There is no hare in my conversational races with Dan. At tortoise pace, we intricately go over the points made by so-and-so in whatever book (or some other set of points) ... savoring the ideas; cultivating the implications.

And finally how those points relate to Dan's week emerge into clarity like those old Polaroid snapshots that used to mature right in front of your eyes.

Logos2Go

1 Corinthians 11.33 So then, my brothers, when you come together to eat, wait for each other.

What is bling?

The wedding is now T-minus several weeks, and Valerie is throwing a new word around: BLING. As in:

"I need some bling to go with this dress."

What does this mean?

I'm not much when it comes to evolutionary theory, but my suspicion is that "bling" is a recent emergence from the primordial soup of language.

So I did some research: in the 1993 edition of The American Heritage College Dictionary (I'm old enough to have a hard copy on my shelves) -- in the 1993 edition, the word bling is not listed.

But look on dictionary.com and ... whoops there it is:

bling: also bling-bling, by 1997, U.S. rap slang, "wealth, expensive accessories," a sound suggestive of the glitter of jewels and precious metals (cf. Ger. blinken "to gleam, sparkle").

and

bling: noun, flashy, ostentatious jewelry; "the rapper was loaded with bling"

Aha, so the rappers and the Germans had something to do with it. And I was (blinken) right: the vintage is only1997.

So, flashy ostentatious jewelry. That's what it means...

Logos2Go

Genesis 4.22 And Zillah, she also bore Tubal-Cain, the forger of every kind of tool of brass and iron. And the sister of Tubal-Cain was Naamah. (Naamah means "loveliness" -- the Strongs number is 5279; the footnote in the Darby version translates the name as "charming").

1 Timothy 2.9 I also want women to dress modestly, with decency and propriety, not with braided hair or gold or pearls or expensive clothes...

In season

Be constant in season and out of season. This was the counsel of Paul.

For everything there is a season. This was the counsel of Solomon.

Paul's advice has been taken to mean: be tough; stiff upper lip come what may; never let'em see your weak side.

Solomon's advice, on the other hand, can easily be taken this way: oh well, I'll do it tomorrow.

We probably all know people who exemplify one or the other of these exhortations. Just one: I'm not backin' down. Or the other: meh, maybe tomorrow.

Inevitably these lives are caricatures of what not to be.

Beauty must be somewhere in the middle. Or better: beauty must be exemplifying both such that the rule of neither is evident. It is very difficult to do.

In writing this post, I recalled a restaurant I knew in Philadelphia in the 1970's, called In Season. Googling it turned up nothing so it must be gone. But in its place I learned about The Little Fish Restaurant. It is obviously a quality place. Reservations are recommended. Here is what it says in its blurb (italics mine):

"Our constantly evolving menu features fresh, in season, seafood accompanied by fine local ingredients."

Current offerings include: Mahi Mahi, crab fregola, tomato vinaigrette, tiny arugala, or Suzuki, little neck clams, fingerling, merguez sausage, roasted pepper...

I have no idea what half these words mean (fregola, finglering, merguez).

But the point is clear: the menu changes in season. The quality is the same always.

Logos2Go

2 Timothy 4.2 ... be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching.

Ecclesiastes 3.1 For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven ...

To say or not to say?

This is the question.

It is a question I'm asking myself more and more these days before, well ... before saying anything.

In almost all kinds of conversations or conversations-to-be, I've come to appreciate the consequences of ... saying nothing.

It's a variation on: Just Say No.

Here's the variation: Just Don't Say It.

For example, in committee meetings at the office, if you say it, chances are you'll DO it. You just may become the chair of a sub-committee. This is not a good thing.

Or out of concern you share what you think to be a constructive insight about a friend's approach to things. And now your friendship is on the fritz.

Or for the sake of pleasantries you say to relatives: "Hey, come again!" And now they're actually coming again ...

Our culture places an enormous premium on Saying It versus Not Saying It.

Speak Up! This is one of the mantras of our culture.

On the other hand, not speaking up is held in lower esteem. You may be seen as a wallflower. In some venues silence is almost regarded as a disease.

But consider all you have to do today; all you must face up to; all the problems on your plate; maybe even all the people you hope you don't bump into ...

How much of all this is because, at some point, you chose to speak up rather than shut up? You were just on your way, minding your own business. But then ...

You spoke up. And now you've got this mess on your hands.

Just yesterday I walked by my boss's office -- I was on the way to the men's room. "Hey," I thought, "this'll be a good time to tell him I'm taking on Project X ... I'll just let him know after my pit stop ..."

But in the men's room an insight came to me: "What if I don't tell him I'm taking on Project X? How about waiting until Project X actually shows promise before telling him anything?"

So I went back to my office without saying a word.

Do you know how many meetings I just saved myself from attending?

The feeling I got from this Non-Intervention Into the Percolation of Events was a pleasant one.

But for most of us, silence is almost never golden. At best it is an acquired taste.

Logos2Go

Ecclesiastes 5.2 Be not rash with your mouth, nor let your heart be hasty to utter a word before God, for God is in heaven and you are on earth. Therefore let your words be few.

Job 5.7 Yet man is born to trouble as surely as sparks fly upward.

James 3.4-6 Look also at ships: although they are so large and are driven by fierce winds, they are turned by a very small rudder wherever the pilot desires. Even so the tongue is a little member and boasts great things. See how great a forest a little fire kindles! And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity. The tongue is so set among our members that it defiles the whole body, and sets on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire by hell.

Cover Girl Makeup

Let's think about this:

What is being covered up? Whatever it is, the implication is that the girl we see is not the girl we will get. Because the real girl is covered up.

Cover girl.

What is covering her?

Makeup. Make - up.

So the real girl that is covered is covered by stuff that is made up to cover her.

Stuff that is made up. As in make believe.

"No silly!" I am told by folks in the know. "'Cover' means the cover of a magazine ... Cover Girl Makeup means girls that are made up so beautifully they can grace the cover of magazines."

So at best I'm reading "cover" as a double entendre, they say.

But I just don't see it as a double entendre.

Logos2Go

Luke 12.2 For there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed; neither hid, that shall not be known.

What the lilies of the field mean

If God so clothe the lilies of the field ... how much more will he clothe you, Oh you of little faith ...

So said Jesus in his famous Sermon on the Mount.

I always took this to mean not to worry about physical clothing and what physical clothing represents: my material needs.

But this never solved a puzzle: There are many followers of Jesus Christ who suffer physical privation. Also troubling was this: Some of them are much more at rest -- downright more joyous -- than me.

And they are probably more beautiful than me as well.

Ah ... Solomon in all of his glory was not arrayed like one of these ...

So the point is not how much clothing one has -- because Solomon obviously had no need for pomp and regalia.

The point is how much glory -- and whose glory. Is it my glory (in which case I am never happy, because I all too often strive for it)?

Or is it the glory of God shining through, like it shines through the lilies of the field, whose regalia is simply given to them from the Life within.

So, Jesus was not talking about being clothed with Macy's.

He was talking about being clothed with Glory:

Logos2Go

Matthew 6.28-30 Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which today is and tomorrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?

Philippians 4.11 ... for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content.

1 Peter 1.6-8 ... though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith - of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire - may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with a joy unspeakable and full of glory...

A definition of glory -- and a question

Glory is God's nature and presence coming through His creation unimpeded.

By creation I mean all that He has created, the heavens above, this world, the seen and the unseen; but primarily I mean the materials of this creation: physical nature; human nature.

God's glory "requires" the materiality of creation to make it known. By require I do not mean that God needs anything. I simply mean that, had God not created us and all that we are, in context of this creation and all that it is, we wound not be here to wonder what His glory is.

And so glory relates to the fundamental question of questions: Why is there everything, instead of nothing at all?

There is everything because the glory of God has called it all into being.

It appears that nature itself, for all of its current troubles, knows this.

The question is, do we?

Logos2Go

Matthew 5.16 Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.

Matthew 6.28-29 Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?