Author: Tim

• Conversation: Sweetness Moves Toward Liturgy

  Conversation in new truth takes on formal voices.   The room feels hushed.Formality, you see, is not the mode of distance, but of preciousness.   It is the courtliness of the lord and the lady on the hidden stairs. Formality is real when the gestures are stylized and the eyes are moist. “Liturgist”. To some,…

• Conversation Is Always Sweet

  Conversation tends to the unbearably  Sweet. Do you notice how, when you remember our conversation now,  it feels sweet?  Your heart aches to talk again.   It is like the feeling of being in love.   But, unlike infatuations, it need never go away.    Don’t spend the sweetness on yourselves.   The friends will…

• Conversation: You Are Canon To Me

  “Canon” means one thing in religious studies, but its primordial, organic, even mystical meaning is the commitment one Friend makes to another, in real time, as they talk. Canonicity is the entrance into Conversation.  Because I love you, your words are canon to me.   My responses will embrace your thought, affirm it, subsume it,…

• Conversation: Each Pericope Advances Upon the Last

  Any comment that could make sense without the context of its predecessor is not in a conversation. My thought will embrace yours, subsume it, affirm it, and build on it. This is the order and structure of talk; all else is disorder and anti-talk.

• Conversation: Nothing in Your Heart Matters

  Say something about what I said.   Anything, as long as what you say is not about your own thoughts or feelings.   Instead, add the next sentence to my sentence.  About a thing or subject.  Take the attitude that nothing in your heart is important. There is a certain type of person who talks…

• Conversation: Here Is It Works

  Here is how it works: I’ll say something, and you say something back, and our hearts are fixed on caring for each other.   Upon this ground we will hear God join our talk. There really isn’t much more to know than this.   Though I’m glad to tell you what I’ve learned about how…

• Conversation Is A Specific Way, And Experience, In Talking

  “Conversation” is not a subjective term. It has as precise a meaning as “tree” or “rock”.  In a conversation, each pericope advances upon the last.  It is warm, sweet, structured, disciplined, highly idiosyncratic yet full of role-discipline — all at once. What most people call “conversation” is not. Most verbal encounters are just serial monologues,…

• Conversations Never Stop

  To build a comment fully on my friend’s comment — comment, subsume it and then add to it, requires all discipline and creativity.  Nothing is more difficult.   We either subsume or we evade. Tradition is just a long conversation, and a conversation is a microcosmic picture of  how tradition works — by a canonical respect…

• Conversation: All That is in Your Heart Matters

  Say something, say anything. Which means nothing in your heart is unimportant. Yes, you are right. There was a time when nothing in your heart was important. Now, it is the opposite. It usually comes after a few months. You’re seeing that the slightest twinge in your heart – the slightest flicker of a feeling,…

• “Backtalk” and Authentic Prayer

  It seems the sweetest of children eventually hit a stage when they mouth off about everything.    Some parents call this “backtalk” and generally think it is to be suppressed as much as possible, or maybe just ignored.  [Note:  “Backtalk” may be a regional term.  It’s familiar to me from growing up in small-town West…