What is the conversation you've been waiting to have?

[Randy Weeks]

Along the lines of such powerful questions as: "How valuable do I plan for this experience to be?", "What is the gift I've come to give today?" and "What is the 'yes' I no longer mean?", comes this invitation to take part in an online conversation about the OFF-Line conversations we're having or waiting to have.

What is the conversation you've been waiting to have?

[Randy Weeks]

Seeing a how I started this thread, I'll post my own reply, as well...

When someone asks about my favorite things to so, good conversation is pretty much at the tip of the list, along with making and listening to music. I realize sometimes that I what really like is to talk, which I know isn't necessarily conversation, but I'm working on it. :-)

One conversation I've been waiting to have is what matters most to a person I meet about his or her neighborhood and the people and places found there.

A variation on that is a conversation with someone about his or her most important beliefs or opinions that are quite different from my own.

Last night, after Obama became President elect, I was noticing all of the twitter and facebook updates by friends who had supported McCain and were expressing varying degrees of disappointment at the election results. I reflected on how I'd have felt if Obama had lost, and it stirred me to stop waiting to have that conversation. I wanted to contact some of them and ask them to talk about their perceptions and beliefs and what matters to them. I wanted to practice curiosity over explanation and see where the conversation could lead.

I decided, this morning, before I could change my mind, to start with one of those folks I thought would be most receptive to the idea. I invited my friend Cliff to have lunch tomorrow & have a conversation about our respective strong feelings about this year's election. Cliff is a talented new media pioneer who has nurtured his love of podcasting into a full time business with dozens of different podcast programs being produced, published and enjoyed each week. He is a devout Christian and former Nazarene pastor, as well as a husband and father. We know enough about each other to know our perspectives on faith and politics are quite different. We also like each other enough to have a conversation around what we care about in common, and why it matters so much to each of us.

So... I'll let you know how that conversation goes.


RBW

[Randy Weeks]

Because I have been waiting to have these very kinds of conversations and stalling for any number of reasons, I posted about my wish to have more conversations that matter the other day with the question: "What is the Conversation you've been waiting to have?"

Thursday at lunch was conversation #1 for me, with friend and conservative voter, Cliff Ravenscraft. We met for the purpose of having a conversation about what matters to each of us, and to explore the common beliefs, life views and insights we suspect we share, but haven't much explored...

It was good. It was long, too. About 2 hours, all recorded on his field recorder for podcasting. That's his profession (visit www.gspn.tv to learn about his excellent and pioneering work) and later that night, the entire lunch conversation was posted online and made available to the thousands of listeners who download his shows every day.

Here's a link to the page from which the podcast may be played or downloaded. I'm appreciative of the comments that have been posted on his site about the podcast by some of those GSPN members who've taken the time to listen to our long conversation.

So, it was a planned way to start off my wish for Common Conversations, which made it a little less scary to me as a first outing. I also knew Cliff has recorded lunch conversations as possible podcasts before, and that is something I want to do, so the plan to record it was easily achieved. I was pretty sure it would be friendly, as well, because even though I've known Cliff less than a year, I know enough to hold him in high regard as a thoughtful and compassionate man, who has experienced a lot of his own shifting in his faith and spiritual life.

I also expected that he'd have strong personal reasons for supporting Senator McCain and Governor Palin and for NOT supporting Senators Obama and Biden, and I wanted to hear him talk about that, and to listen with an open and appreciative heart, so that some of my natural filtering processes could be suspended in listening with curiosity.

We talked about filters, labels, etc., and one reflection I have from the conversation is that the filters we all have in place must be pretty powerful. It became clear to each of us, I think, that very different things stood out to us in our respective listening to the candidates, and what we actually came away hearing, in some cases, seems so different that one wonders if we heard the same person, let alone the same speeches. The practice of the Six Conversations can help me be more aware of my own filters and, like any mindfulness practice, weaken their unconscious effects on my listening and responses by simply observing their existence.

I look forward to the next conversations and am contacting people I'd like to invite to share in them. I would be glad to hear from anyone who has their own experiences to share or who would like to sit down with me sometime for a Common Conversation of our own.

It doesn't have to take 2 hours, by the way... :-)

RBW

[Harry Fry]

Dear friends,

As many of you know, I think we should have A Community Conversation on Health Care Reform. It could consist of many conversations involving different venues. One possibility would be to use this ning site to connect concerned citizens and thus create a focused electronic network. I will start here by providing a useful link re ongoing efforts regarding health care reform in Cincinnati:

http://search.yahoo.com/search?fr=ush_mailm&ei=UTF-8&p=Heal...

Best to everyone.

Harry

[Randy Weeks]

Hi, Harry.

I just wanted to weigh in with my belated reply and some thoughts on health insurance.

I think if we had some form of universal health care that our national and even world economy might change and grow in incredible ways.

So many of us are gifted in ways we don't even consider "Marketable" in common practice. People with varied interests and talents can create small income streams from a variety of activities. They could make a pretty good living doing more than one kind of work that suits them.

What they can't do is get health insurance from that variety of income streams.

So they do what they must in the current system: they get jobs that provide health insurance.

Many, if they didn't have to seek and keep a job that provides their health coverage, would be able to make ends meet - even thrive - with the income generated from any number of part time endeavors, from cooking, planting, painting, sculpting, cleaning, crafting, teaching, selling, fixing, performing, writing, flea marketing, ebaying, driving, coding, designing, consulting... you name it. Those of us with multiple interests and talents can more easily find ways to make some kind of living from them today than at any other time in human history since the Renaissance.

In such a connected world, where stories of Cultural Creatives, Internet entrepreneurs, eBay businesses and the growth of local, small and green companies have become common for most of the last decade, why hasn't the creative bloom become a revolution?

I think one reason is the burden of needing health insurance, which keeps the average person and most families with at least one foot in an old world order that said "get a good job with benefits and you'll be ok". So everyone needs a job with 32-40 hours a week of scheduled time, because everyone needs health care.

We base so much of our economic thinking and conversations on jobs. We talk about "jobs" as if they're the only way for people to make a living with their lives and talents.

And it's true - at least in part. Jobs are great. Employment of any kind, work of all kinds, matters, of course, but there are so many ways of making a living that don't include a 40-hour per week position with a health plan.

Anyway... that's probably not even where you were headed with your post, Harry, but it's been on my novice mind a lot lately, as i imagine how many ways there are to create income in today's world, but how few are explored or realized because of the more pressing need most people have for employment that provides the health insurance.

Warm regards,

RW