January 11, 2024 – A

Posted byjimwdollarPosted in06/25/2020
Bison at Breakfast 06-26-2011 — Hyden Valley, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming
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Conversation from the heart
about things that matter to the heart
are among the most sacred
of our life experiences.

And I am dismayed at the astounding absence
of that from our lives.

Why don't we talk with each other
about the things that matter?

About the deep things that challenge us
to find words to say what cannot be said?

Poets do it all the time
with their poems and their books,
and I hope in conversation with each other
at poet conventions,
or just over coffee down the street.

Songwriters do it.
Artists do it.
Musicians do it.
Children at play do it.
Home decorators do it. 
...
It is being done.
But not consciously, deliberately,
by all of us
all of the time. 

I do not know why this kind of conversation
is not encouraged
and enabled
throughout culture and society.
It is life itself
dying to be expressed
and experienced
throughout the world
and all the other worlds there may be.

–0–

Published by jimwdollar

I'm retired, and still finding my way--but now, I don't have to pretend that I know what I'm doing. I retired after 40.5 years as a minister in the Presbyterian Church USA, serving churches in Louisiana, Mississippi and North Carolina. I graduated from Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary, in Austin, Texas, and Northwestern State University in Natchitoches, Louisiana. My wife, Judy, and I have three daughters, five granddaughters, one great granddaughter, and a great grandson on the way, within about ten minutes from where we live--and are enjoying our retirement as much as we have ever enjoyed anything.

4 thoughts on “January 11, 2024 – A”

    1. As an artist, you have been “saying” these things all your life! I am deeply grateful to you and all others who keep “the conversation” going, pointing always to “more than words can say”!

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  2. “Why don’t we talk with each other about the things that matter?” In my experience, it is because first most of us do not know how, and some of us who may attempt to do it a few times- stop, because perhaps they do not feel understood. Most people are afraid of going into the depths of their own being to dig out things that could make them question the slumber and numbness of their accepted believes, attitudes and patterns of behaviour. In the back of everybody’s mind, this feeling may be occasionally arising, but frequently pushed aside- that there may be more to life than what just appears to us.
    Living superficially in today’s busy chaotic lifestyle of merely living to earn a living, in preparation to really “live well someday”…but most do not want to discuss such things or see clearly- that “someday” can only be right ‘now’, and ‘every day’…or it never will come.
    I am surprised how uncomfortable people get, whenever I have tried to probe any deeper than the usual pleasantries during our conversations…but many still feel the pull to do that. They just hesitate, push it aside, because they are afraid of the change and disturbance, that such a line of thought may cause to their daily apparently ‘well-settled’ lives.

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