does it count if the person you’re stalking is you?

last nite i was sitting chatting to my friend and hardcore gym buddy Coe at Mad Mex where we were hanging out celebrating Erica whose residency has reached an end and i suddenly had this surreal moment of watching myself/listening to myself speak.

the main topic of our conversation started with ‘Hunger Games’ which we both had watched this week and had different reactions to or feelings about, but then extended to the topic of ‘movies i have walked out of’ vs ‘why i will never walk out of a movie’ and a few things beyond that.

we have quite dramatically different [some would say ‘opposing’] views on the topic of conversation and yet at no point did the discussion get heated or did i call him an idiot [or even secretly think it] – what i did say was that i held value in the fact that Coe had a different view on something to me based on thought that he had put into it as opposed to complete lack of thought and just going along with what a lot of other people do/think. And that for me was incredible. I didn’t need to have him ‘come over to my side’ or end the discussion agreeing with me [he didn’t, but i hope and believe he saw and understood my points and point of view and wasn’t secretly calling me ‘idiot’ inside his head altho knowing Coe as i do, he would have almost definitely not kept it inside his head if he had thort so] and yet it was refreshing to discuss and hear a radically different opinion and way of doing things and also be able to understand the merit of his point of view.

at one point i said a lot of this stuff to him and how ‘twenty-years-ago Brett’ or even maybe ‘ten-years-ago Brett’ would more than likely not have displayed the same kind of maturity in conversation or probly even in thort as ‘present-day Brett’ had going on. and it was a moment of hey-maybe-i-do-actually-grow-or-change-from-time-to-time… which was a good feeling to have.

the other thing which i said to Coe which i think is important is that those other two Brett’s were probably not that much different in passion or belief or understanding – the way i addressed things then, the conversations i had, the letters i wrote, were all done with the same or similar kind of motivation and belief, but probably, at times, with less good execution or action. so i hold my belief from the conversation i had with Coe very passionately and for me i still see it as the truth i currently hold to [or what i believe as best as i can to be truth] while at the same time am able to hold that in tension alongside seeing and understanding why Coe holds his belief very passionately as the truth he currently holds to. and the possibility that we could in some way both be right. or both be wrong. or maybe more likely both be partially right and partially wrong. who knows? the conversation was part of a wrestle for truth which more people could do more of. we settle too quickly for ‘i’m right, everyone who thinks differently is wrong’ and not enough of ‘how can i learn from what you think and experience and believe?’

great chat with a good friend and exciting to have that personal moment of watching and listening to myself and the process of the discussion and how it went down, and to smile quietly to myself…

 

elementary my dear w

yesterday tbV and now my friend as well, brian watson, dropped in for a visit… from South Africa, brian is in the middle of doing his PHD in Arizona in stuff you would have to hear to not really understand [altho solar power and keeping particles the right distance from each other and a billionth of a meter thin wire all enter into it] and it was great to get to see him.

he is actually spending most of the weekend with a friend of his in NYC so trained his way through to hang with us from yesterday afternoon and then left eeearly this morning…

what was really cool was that in the village house over a snack and then later on the train and then outside Mad Mex bar and then on the train and then during and after the potluck we had a number of significant conversations. at least a week’s worth altho probly closer to a month or a year for a lot of people i know.

real talk. about real things. life changing things. frustration with wanting church to get it a little bit closer to God’s way things. relationship things. community things.

[and actually we did touch on sport and movies and food in there but the point being that we spent so little time together – relatively – and yet the conversation was so rich]

i hesitate to finish with a challenge cos i suspect the kind of people who read this blog are the kind of people for whom rich conversations are the norm – not necessarily every one, but at least sometimes, and preferably often. and so maybe the challenge is more about challenging the people you know who can get through a year or a month or a week’s worth of conversations and only have dealt with the latest or rehashed information about food, sport and movies.

our time with brian left us feeling like we’d grown a bit and hopefully he did as well. we got stuff to think about and hopefully gave some. as a result of some of the talk that happened things will probably change, maybe in small ways, but maybe later in larger ones.

i still want to be able to quote Monty Python and get amped when we thrash the Aussies in the coming cricket test match and defend Michael Schumacher’s comeback [give him a car, Ross!] and do weird and silly voices with Monkman and get amped for coffee and chocolate and mashed potato… but at the same time i want to grapple with the problem of the drug dealers on our doorstep and try to figure out how to do community living better with the people we live with, and discover how Jesus and His teaching translates to the Puerto Rican people who live across the road from us and figure out how to improve the aft6er school homework program and formulate an opinion on Occupy Philly and and and…

let’s practice speaking more life, more meaningfully and more real. ly.