Friendships and Relationships: Conversations of a Kind

I was invited to lead worship back at Cross Street Chapel this week. The minister is on Sabbatical and I had agreed to cover the Wednesday lunchtime service there. It took me back to a cold January lunchtime back in 2005 when I first walked through the door of the chapel. I was greeted by Peter Sampson, at the door, it was lovely to see him there again.There were only a couple of people present who would also have been there back then. so much has changed since and yet this place has remained the same, a spiritual oasis in the heart of the busy city of Manchester, a beacon of free and inquiring religion. Back then John Midgley's service spoke to my heart and soul and I began a new relationship with a tradition I felt I could belong within. A conversation began that day as I listened. The conversation has a continued as the relationship has developed.

I had come to the Unitarians, as I had other traditions, seeking answers to many questions I had begun to experience a spiritual awakening in the proceeding months. The questions have not been answered but my relationship with the Great Mystery has continued and the conversation has developed. I found a home amongst these seekers.

I listened to much, I have shared quite a lot, I have sat in silence, I have sung songs, I have laughed and I have wept. I have grown spiritually.

I have come to understand that at its core the spiritual life is about relationships; relationships with life, with each other, with ourselves and with God, whatever we understand God to be. And how do relationships develop? Well through conversation, through sharing ourselves with each other, not by losing ourselves, but becoming ourselves through our conversations with the other, lower and upper case. We relate through conversation and thus we grow spiritually, through relationship.

Now there are of course many ways to relate, to converse. It is not just through the spoken word. There is a wonderful song in the latest New Model Army album “From Here” it is titled “Conversation” it is a song about a need to connect when lost in a desperate situation. The essence of the song is this desire to connect to make conversation of any kind. The last few lines of the song follow:

And though nothing much is said
It’s a conversation of a kind
You take any companion you can find

All those flickering lights across the town
Crackling connections and animals running
There are ghosts everywhere and the night watching

Call me any time, call me any time
And though nothing much will be said
It will be a conversation of a kind
Call me any time, call me any time

If you click on this link you can hear the song

Conversation

By the way I saw New Model army in Manchester last night. They were immense. We have been sharing an amazing conversation for decades now. It was wonderful that Sue could come along with me and join in the conversation too. I bumped into an old friend too, I knew I would.

I am sure that all of us, at one time or another, have felt a desperate sense of disconnection when we would give anything to connect to a conversation of some kind, to begin to relate once again.

In “The Art of Conversation: A Guided Tour of a Neglected Pleasure” Catherine Blyth suggests that:

"When it works, conversation can come close to heaven. Be it sharing a laugh with a stranger, transforming a contact into a friend; that joyful moment when you click, share a joke, or spark a new idea; or just letting off steam with someone who knows how to listen — there are countless adventures between minds out there, waiting to happen, in each encounter, each day of our lives.

"Networking is part of conversation's value, although the word sounds chilly and strategic. Conversation is something bigger: It is the spontaneous business of making connections, whether for work, friendship, or pure, fleeting pleasure.

She suggests that conversation is more than words, it is music: "Its harmony, rhythm, and flow transcend communication, flexing mind and heart, tuning us for companionship."

Conversations whether spoken or not, build and deepen relationship.

Losing connection and thus feeling like you can’t converse any longer can be deeply disconcerting. Something we are not use to in this age, but it can and does happen. We were recently without internet connection due to problems in the area, it is amazing how quickly it affected us, it certainly interfered with my work and Sue’s too, as well as her daughter’s social life. We all felt a little cut off from our usual connections.

If you ever want to witness someone experiencing an existential crisis just observe them when their battery has gone on their Smart or I Phone, or if they can’t get wi-fi access. It is like watching someone who has crossed into the realm of non-existence. As they lose their connections they feel that they can no longer relate to life. It seems that we desperately need to be engaged in this seemingly artificial conversation all the time, or somehow we feel lost and alone.

It would appear that Wi-Fi connection is one of the most valuable commodities we can possess. I suspect that this desire symbolizes something deeper. We have confused connection, conversation, spiritual intimacy with technological connectedness. Today we have so many ways to keep in touch with each other, to communicate and yet I wonder if these conversations actually lead to the connections that we so deeply crave. So many of us describe feeling lonely, so deeply lonely. There is this craving for connection, for community, for spiritual intimacy.

Perhaps instead of better Wi-Fi what we ought to be seeking is deep conversation and true relationship with each other, with life, with our true selves and with our God. Communicating through a small screen is nothing in comparison to looking deeply into the eyes of another and communicating soul to soul. Sometimes nothing needs to be actually said for it to be a conversation of a deep kind. All it requires is presence, being with each other.

One of my favourite things in the world is to sit silently with others. There is something more in it than sitting silently alone. Yes it is silence, but it is a conversation of a kind; between our hearts and souls and the greater soul of life.

Relationships with each other are vital. Some of the most important ones come through friendships. Friendship allow a deeper spiritual intimacy and they develop a deeper conversation over time.

I get married this March and it has been a struggle whittling down who Sue, my fiancé, and myself would be inviting. There are many people we would like to invite but the chapel just won’t hold them all. It has caused both of us some pain and guilt as we have been unable to invite many folk, I hope that it doesn’t spoil connection and further conversation. I trust that those who we cannot invite will be friends enough to forgive us, I certainly do not want to end the conversation or lose the connection.

This brings to mind some wisdom from David Whyte, on friendship.

“FRIENDSHIP is a mirror to presence and a testament to forgiveness. Friendship not only helps us see ourselves through another’s eyes, but can be sustained over the years only with someone who has repeatedly forgiven us for our trespasses as we must find it in ourselves to forgive them in turn. A friend knows our difficulties and shadows and remains in sight, a companion to our vulnerabilities more than our triumphs, when we are under the strange illusion we do not need them. An undercurrent of real friendship is a blessing exactly because its elemental form is rediscovered again and again through understanding and mercy. All friendships of any length are based on a continued, mutual forgiveness. Without tolerance and mercy all friendships die.”

Friendship’s allow a deeper intimacy in life, they are vital to it. Such deep intimacy and true face to face friendships are as important to young people today as they have always been. They may appear that they are lost in the artificial, but they are not. People are the same as they have always been. I suspect that such friends are the first deep intimacies that any of us experience as we get to know ourselves through relationship with others. They allow us to find ourselves in life and thus connect to that which as the core of life. Perhaps the ultimate of all friendships and intimacies is the relationship we enjoy with our God.

A friend is someone you can trust, you can rely upon, someone who will be there for you, and certainly my friends have always been there for me. We have laughed and we have cried together. We have enjoyed some wild and crazy times together and we have grieved as we have lost one of our number. I have lost a lot of friends over the years, far too many. I will be thinking of those friends and family on our wedding day.

If life has taught me anything it is that it is all about relationships, everything that really matters is about relationships. The key to all relationships is conversation, of some kind, its about being with each other in spiritually intimate ways and forming friendships of some kind.

Life is all about relationships; the spiritual life is all about relationships. Relationships with life, with each other, with ourselves and with God, whatever we understand God to be. And how do relationships develop? Well through conversation, through sharing ourselves with each other, not by losing ourselves, but becoming ourselves through our conversations with the other, lower and upper case. We relate through conversation and thus we grow spiritually, through relationship.

Nothing much needs to be said, to form a conversation of some kind. A relationship can be formed in any situation and circumstance all you have to do is be open to it.

Call me any time…