Engaging well with people with whom you have not ever had a conversation
Followers of this blog may appreciate that its focus has been on contexts in which people converse with others who they have not have ever met and may not do again.
My purpose in convening such gatherings in public places, starting in Hong Kong and then periodically in Adelaide, where I now live, is to provide opportunities for whoever comes to have enjoyable experiences. And behind and beyond this to become more conscious of just what conversing is – and does. To enable participants to be aware of how different our personal lives and that of people we encounter can be when we become more thoughtful conversationalists.
Seeing as this is one of my longstanding passions I tend to notice instances in which this happens, in diverse circumstances. And am thankful for people from all over our little planet, 3rd from the sun, who bring these to my attention.
Here are a few such examples which may excite and delight you to know that they exist. Perhaps enough to test if they be of value to you? <smile>
From a lively spirit with whom I have longstanding correspondence to do with contexts in which people have real conversations. This is Mike Sands msands@dccnet.com of Vancouver, Canada who reported:
“A few weeks ago five members and friends of SFUC * got together to tell each other stories of ‘What Went Well.’ We met in a park, sat in a circle and, to get things going, we chose a theme of, ‘When did sound enrich your life?’ Some sounds that came up were the ‘song’ of Pandesal (bread) vendors in the Philippines and the silence of electric cars. This topic got us sparking, everyone reportedly had a really good time and we all learned things about each other that we can use as openings for future visiting.
The event went so well that several of us decided to ‘just be there’ in the same park, two weeks later. So we put out an email and had a second meeting. More people came. This time, after a first sharing amongst everybody, we broke into twos and threes and asked each other to tell stories of ‘What Went Well.’ A sign of the success was that after a half hour of engaging in twos everybody was deep, deep, in conversation.
For me – it was a wonderful friendly session, I now have had very interesting and ‘generative’ conversations with people who I have known for years and yet have never talked to!” [Emphasis added by Alan]
*South Fraser Unitarian Congregation
And this via a great friend Gayatri Erlandson in Asheville, NC, USA who suggested that I would do well to look at:
Robbie Stokes: Talking with Strangers
http://www.awakin.org/forest/?pg=guest&cid=156
What if we treated everyone as if they were our own? “Strangers are just friends we haven’t yet met,” they often say. Can we build communities rooted in that kind of trust and faith in connection?
How does Robbie’s observation that “Stranger is a beautiful word” resonate with you?
See the blog entry for the remarkable adventure on which Robbie is now embarked.
http://www.awakin.org/forest/index.php?pg=profile&cid=156&sid=15189
The new edition (4th) of my now famous book Time to converse – at the heart of human warmth is about how to have ever more warm, human interactions in our daily encounters with whoever they are and what this may mean for their world and as a result OUR world.
It can be ordered here.
Looking forward
Alan Stewart
Adelaide
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