There my husband, brother-in-law and I were sitting in the new south Kerbey Lane Cafe waiting for our lunch and talking over country & western music when my b-i-l decides to start waxing philosophical about what happens to us–our essences–our energy after we die.  Now, most of you who have been reading my blogs for awhile probably have a pretty good guess as to where most of my beliefs tend to veer off on topics such as these. And my husband and I have had all kinds of conversations over topics such this one over the years but I got to tell you that I was happily surprised to hear my b-i-l just breaking out into such an esoterical topic right smack dab in the middle of the day.  I pretty much always welcome good conversation.

According to my b-i-l, we are a composite of energy from all kinds of things and when we die all of our energy goes to making all kinds of other things whether it be human, animal, insect, vegetable etc.  and in that way we do carry on.  I realized as he was talking that, for the most part, I agree that our energy does disperse and is adsorbed into making new life but I also believe there is that part of us called the soul that binks off into the space between the material and in-material to reconnect with the divine.  To my brother-in-law’s credit he was able to shrug his shoulders about some of my far out postulating and at least ponder the possibility.  Still, I was just thrilled that there we three sat having this great philosophical conversation as if we were in the middle of our own movie like, “Dazed and Confused” or perhaps our own lunch-time version of “My Dinner With Andre”.

After our lunch, I thought about our conversation and realized that in order for us to get to participate in a good conversation (besides being someone who can come up with great ideas and questions), we have to be open to hearing opinions and ideas which may not be exactly, if at all, like how we believe or think.  One thing  I’ve learned about myself over the years is that very often I formulate and make quick judgments about what someone is saying without really delving into what they are saying further with them and at least asking clarifying questions to understand what they are saying.  Ye gads am I not a talking processor of my thoughts and feelings whereby sometimes I don’t really know what I believe or think until I’ve been talking for awhile and have allowed time for my thoughts to unravel?  Why can’t other people be the same way as me?  Maybe some folks engage their mouth first before thinking through what they really believe and want to say?

Maybe this all seems really obvious to you but sometimes the most basic rule of thumb takes awhile to connect the dots in my brain.  Whatever the case may be, I’m grateful the dots that needed to connect were able to connect for this conversation with my b-i-l and husband so that we could have a good conversation.  And even after 21 years, get to see sides of each other that we may have not seen before.

How about you? Are you open to good conversation?  What is good conversation to you?