Conversation

Yesterday I spent my whole day talking with people.

When I went up to pay my breakfast bill at the restaurant, the pretty girl acting as cashier hushed whatever she was saying to the guy ahead of me. She walked around the counter and whispered in his ear.

As that customer left laughing, she and I lightly bantered back and forth as we have for a couple of years worth of mornings.

I teased her that she never whispers in my ear.

“No, I couldn’t, Mr. Cowart” she said. “It was a dirty joke and I couldn’t tell that to you. You’re too respectable”.

Story of my life.

Pretty girls have always found me too respectable.

Darn!

Anyhow, that was my first conversation of the day.

My daughter in law came over early and we spend a couple of hours talking about flowers, furniture, family, and future events.

She and my youngest son got married just before Thanksgiving last year and she has blended into our family so well that she seems to have always been part of the group. But apart from group activities, I have not actually known her. This was the first time she and I have ever sat down and enjoyed a one on one conversation.

I’m impressed.

Donald has won a prize.

Later in the afternoon I talked at length with a guy across the street about neighborhood stuff like trash pick-up, kids on bicycles in the street, and issues affecting property values. Now that winter is over, he and his wife are thinking of selling their home here in Florida and moving to Michigan.

Amid the above conversations, my youngest daughter came back from a promising job interview and we enjoyed talking for an hour or so before she headed back to Gainesville.

We talked about dictionary definitions and Bible passages as they apply to life.

This morning I looked up the word conversation in my dictionary; I find its meanings include: to live; to keep company with; as well as an oral exchange of sentiments, observations, opinions or ideas.

It interested me to find that the word conversation is also a fencing term referring to the back and forth play of sword blades in a match.

Immediately I thought of sharpening a carving knife at Thanksgiving dinner — know how you take that sharpening iron out of the drawer and whet it back and forth on the carving knife blade to get a keen edge?

That’s one picture the Bible uses about conversation. King Solomon said, “As iron sharpeneth iron, so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend”.

The interplay of words and ideas in a conversation sharpens us both.

The things we talk about defines our relationships.

For instance, one intriguing Bible passage says, “Evil communications corrupt good manners” — I have no idea exactly what that means but I think it relates to the things we talk about.

But it appears that usually the Scripture writers use the word conversation in the sense of overall life-style, not just words we say.

When St. Peter talked about the popping of our last balloon, he said:

But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.

Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness, looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat?

So. I’ve spent my whole day talking, whetting my soul against the souls of other people, other ideas, other outlooks. And this has brought me to the place where I need to mesh my talking words with living my whole lifestyle.

St. Paul encouraged the people in the city of Phillipi : “Only let your conversation be as it becometh the gospel of Christ… that ye stand fast in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel; and in nothing terrified by your adversaries…. For unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake.

Good for Paul.

Nevertheless, being a dirty old man at heart, all day I’ve wondered about that joke the pretty girl whispered in that other customer’s ear.