how to be a good conversationalist

I gave a  talk at the English Department Chapel at Wheaton my senior year. I closed with this:

We have a responsibility to act on the vision that literature gives us. This dovetails with our calling as Christians to see the world for what it truly is. We know that the world is good, because it was created by a good God as an expression of love. We can see goodness and beauty in places where other people see only the mundane. We are called to cultivate that beauty so other people can see and respond to it. On the flip side, we know that the world is deeply broken as a result of the fall. And we are called to see the world's brokenness, wade into it, get our feet muddy, and begin the work of restoration that will culminate in the Kingdom of Christ. This is our calling - to cherish the world's beauty and rebuild the world's brokenness. But in order to do that we have to have the kind of vision that can see beauty and brokenness. Through my time at Wheaton I have learned that literature is one of the most powerful tools there is to mold our vision. And vision leads to action. 

In many ways, this was the culmination of my academic experience - an experience that shaped my desire to examine the intersection between the world of ideas and the world of action.

During my first few years in college, professors encouraged me to ask questions to spark ideas for papers. "Don't start with what you think. Start with a question. And look for an answer to that question. Be willing to be surprised with where you end up."

Y'all, until my junior year of college, I had no earthly idea how to do that well. I would choose questions so big I couldn't possibly fit them into the scope of a six page paper. Or I would choose questions so narrow that it was ridiculously challenging to stretch my conclusions over six long pages. But the deeper problem is I would start with what I wanted to say and then write a question to which my opinion was the answer. That stunted my learning.

But then I spent a semester in Oxford. I had to write three research essays every two weeks. At the beginning of a week, my tutors would hand me a primary source and a list of about 20 questions to choose from. They always encouraged me to use the list as a starting point to develop my own questions. The essays I brought back to them were NOT meant to be my polished final word on the subject. Rather, they were meant to be evidence I was doing the difficult intellectual work - they were supposed provide a good entry point for a conversation with my tutors.

The process was about learning and dialogue, not about my establishing my authoritative opinion - which was good because I was 21 and had no business having an authoritative opinion on anything.

To prepare for my conversations with my tutors, I read extensively from vastly different perspectives on the subjects at hand before I began to formulate my response. In reading those sources, I felt like I was listening in to a conversation that had begun long before I walked into the group.

Basic lesson in human interactions: do not walk up to a conversation that other people are having, assume after two seconds that you know exactly what they are talking about and what you think about it and then jump in to make your two cents known. It doesn't usually end well. At best, you cause some awkwardness and confusion, and at worst you might spark a very unpleasant disagreement in which all the parties are talking past each other rather than listening to each other. (I know this from personal experience.)

Continued basic lesson in human interactions: when you walk up to a conversation that other people have been having, it is not only polite but profitable to actually listen to the conversation for awhile. Seek to know what's going on. Ask good questions to help understand what ground has already been covered, what conclusions have been drawn, and the trajectory of the conversation. You may find that you hold even more firmly to your initial opinion, and that it will add value to the conversation. Or you may find that your initial opinion actually is erroneous in the context of the conversation. Or your might find that you now have big questions that had never before occurred to you. Now it's time to join the conversation as an informed, invested participant rather than as a conversation crasher.

This is what I learned to do through hours in the English Faculty Library and the Bodleian Library, on walks through University Parks, and through conversations with my dinner group (now my online book club).

At this point you've probably realized that although my experience was extremely academic, it had real application to my actual life. I'm an opinionated person, and through my young adulthood I tended to approach difficult issues with a pre-formed opinion. (Who are we kidding? I still have a natural tendency to do that.) Whether I realized it or not, the questions I asked were often designed to validate my opinion as the right answer, rather than to facilitate listening and learning.

My approach to interacting with people and ideas was profoundly shaped by my academic experience at Oxford, the reading I do on my own time, and my relationships with other people. I have learned how important it is to listen for awhile before inserting myself into a conversation. This is NOT because I think my voice has no value or because I don't have strong opinions. It's because I want to be able to use my voice and my opinions to contribute to and shape the conversation, rather than shutting it down with my ignorance or intransigence.

Why am I saying all of this? You've probably guessed it by now.

This has been one heck of a week for our country. In the wake of the deaths of Ahmaud Arbery,  Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd, the nation is in uproar. Peaceful protesters are taking to the streets - as are rioters and vandals. My city has instituted an 8 pm - 6 am curfew until further notice. Not to mention the fact that there is still a global pandemic.

In a situation like this, it is so easy to shut down the challenging questions. It's hard to listen with humility and grace to a conversation that is so messy. It's easy to feel attacked by people who call for the complete defunding of the police and claim that the violent response to police violence is morally justified. It's hard to take the time to distinguish between those voices and the voices of people who are galled both by nationwide destruction and by the deaths that sparked that destruction. It's easy to state an opinion based on my gut response and biases. It's hard to listen to the voices who are begging us to pause and listen to the conversation and ask questions about the underlying issues.

But here's the thing. I think everyone agrees something's gotta change. And change only comes when people are willing to wrestle with difficult questions about the way things are in order to begin to imagine the way things could be. People may disagree on what that looks like, but the only way to develop a vision of productive and lasting change is to choose to be still, ask questions, listen to the response, ask more questions, and begin to formulate a way to move forward.

Please - don't shut out the questions. Don't shut down the conversation. Ask the questions. Learn the stories. Ponder the ideas. And let those questions, those stories, those ideas, push you into action.