Back and forth, side to side, oscillating with mindless repetition, Charlie and Billy had spent a lifetime of having their mouths open, and little white balls pushed into the cavity.
Forever looking out and never in.
Charlie: Hey, Billy?
Billy: Yeah, Charlie Charlie: What’s happening for you today?
Billy: Oh, not much, just the usual, side to side, swallowing balls.
Long Silence
Charlie: You know Billy there’s something missing in my life
Billy: Oh Dear, let’s not get all philosophical now.
Charlie: No, serious, I’ve been thinking about it for a long time.
Billy: Ok, well, what is this one thing?
Charlie: Well, I would just love to see your face.
Tear’s begin to trickle down
There are times in my life, and I believe yours, where we have wanted someone to look at our face. We want Soul Talk.
Where in the constant oscillation of outward appearance, we have wanted to be touched by someone else looking deeply into our souls, and not rejecting what they see.
The story I have conveyed above was told to me by my Doctor many years ago. He had seen it performed as a skit on the ‘Billy T James’ TV show, a New Zealand Comedian.
For the most part, we subsist in loneliness, yet our heart deeply yearns for intimacy. An intimacy that was given birth in the Garden of Eden where nothing was hidden, nothing was feared, and everything was embraced.
We were never meant for lives of
mechanical controlled distance.
Soul talk is a kind of conversation where we don’t stare outwards. Rather, we look inwards to where Spirit is dancing and wooing us to come.
Do most of us, in fact, live alone?
Do most of us come into our small groups with our interior worlds private and leave with our interior worlds just as private, and nothing has taken place at a deep, meaningful level at all? Larry Crabb
As I think of the times where I have looked for this type of conversation with others, overall, it has been disappointing. People would prefer to keep some distance than enter into where souls can touch.
It is what every human longs for but is scared to embrace because we like to be in control.
Conversations like these require vulnerability and risk.
I have, at times, had conversations with people I thought were safe only to have my heart talk be made public and known for others to see and abuse.
The result is to have a quiet whispery thought flowing through the mind that says, ‘I will never let my heart be broken again.’
Do you have this thought too?
A wall is built, a conversation is held back, and we stare blankly out.
What is needed to have good soul talk conversations?
I believe we need people that are both Safe and Wise.
Barry Pearman
Image: By The Rocketeer Creative Commons Flickr
