I'm ready. Are you?

In honor of my 55th birthday today, I thought I’d share a word with you from my latest AARP magazine. The word is “conversation.”

The title of the article about the word is, “The Lost Art of Conversation.” It’s not a great article. Those of you under 55 aren’t missing anything. Those of you over 55 undoubtedly have your AARP privileges and have tossed, scanned, or read your copy of this freebee.

It’s nothing new: people are busy, people move around a lot, there are a great deal of things besides technology that are weakening out connections to each other, and a few that are providing them.

The author, David Dudley, quotes Daniel Menaker a lot. Here’s one I like: “The great yearning in human relationships is to stop acting, to become without disguise.”

The article ends with the author paying a visit to a private club in Baltimore. I don’t think he said, but my guess was it was a men’s club. I couldn’t relate real well. But Dudley quoted the friend he’d accompanied, a 30 year member of the club, as saying he’d dropped out for a while, and then was invited back. The club president had called him with a request too compelling to ignore. “Why don’t you come back. We love to hear you talk.”

I’m giving a few talks in coming months, the first to be next week (Wednesday the 24th) at Unity Church – Unitarian on Holly Avenue in St. Paul (7:00 in case you’re interested), and I realized that the word “compelling” was a good one. When someone wants…actually wants…to listen to you, to know something about you and your work and your experience, it is compelling. Something in you rises to it. And I just got to thinking I could extend a few more such compelling invitations.

I’ve got a whole book of the Course of Love series on dialogue. It’s the last book. It’s the last book for the reason. It says, “Put the books away. Be in dialogue. Enter dialogue with one another.”

I’m 55 today, and I’m ready. Are you?