Conversation

Dark

All waits, sleepy, asleep

Then

the quiet breaks

The first questioning birdsong

Quiet

Sleepy lies the dawn

More bird song

No more a question, but a declaration of light!

Up rises the sun!

 As the moon dips towards the horizon on one side of my home and the sun starts to faintly light the horizon on the other side, as candles flicker in the wind of the heater and the last bit of coffee goes cold, I think about the intangible elements of homemaking.

I’ve pondered on Stagnation which inspired this thread. I’ve pondered on Atmosphere, which might be one of my favorite articles to date, and now I’m pondering on “what else?” What are the other intangible things that make home warm and welcoming? What else can we grasp hold of, shine a light on, to make our places a tangible delight?

Conversations.

Conversations might be one of the things we’re looking for. How does conversation affect atmosphere?

One of the chief uses and delights of the home is conversation. If not being stagnant is about souls, and warmth, beauty, clean and organized is about feeding and growing souls, then one of the chief things a home facilitates is conversation which unifies souls.

Conversation is when we express our hopes and dreams, fears and struggles, tears and laughter to others for them to be examined, calmed, trained, or corrected. Conversation is the intimate sharing of our minds and thoughts. Conversation builds comradery, both in its silly, pointless sides and its deeper, more intense sides. Conversation builds friendships.

Do we want to be friends with the people in our home? Do we want to count our husbands as friends and our children as friends?

Make a point to leave room for conversation.

How?

●       Self-Control

●       Non-Frantic Environment

●       Nourish

Self-Control: Conversations should be a big part of the intangible warmth of our homes and that means we need to make room for them, understanding they will seldom happen at a convenient time, if ever. This means we start with our own hearts. We hold their blessings dear, not labeling them annoying or in the way. We avoid stifling them for the sake of chores. Chores have to be done, yes, but conversation is what our homes shelter. Our chores support conversation as much as they do our church attendance and our families staying clean, alive, and thriving. Creating a place for conversation starts with self-control.

Conversations are often unplanned. We can schedule them up to a point, like mealtimes, but even then conversations can run long. Learn to love the long talks. Let’s preach to ourselves that this talking, even leisurely talking, is more important than all the temporary things.

If they have to be cut short due to an appointment, try to set that expectation at the beginning. If a frantic feeling about the To-Do List rises up, write the list down, even if you have to make a note in the middle of the conversation. Knitting, cross-stitch, and even note-taking during a conversation can help our focus. Some of us converse better when our hands are busy. Some of us may need to set a timer if we tend to get so wrapped up in a conversation that we forget to cook dinner. I tease my husband because he’ll ask to talk to me for five minutes, but that five minutes often turns into an hour or more.

Creating an environment for conversation starts with self-control. We guard and garden our hearts so that we don’t slip into a habit of avoiding them or pushing them low on the priorities list. We engage with a good attitude.

Some of my best family memories are Saturday morning movie discussions over pancakes. When we were little, Dad would tell us about the movie he watched on Friday night. As we got older, it was a joint watching and then a joint discussion. This springboarded into philosophy, theology, art, and more. As a family, we still love discussing movies and stories, though now it’s over beer instead of pancakes. This doesn’t happen if we as the matrons of our homes are out of control.

Conversations with Mom were one of following. We talked while doing laundry, cleaning, making beds, and cooking. It is fine to teach kids to follow us as we work…and maybe husbands. ☺   Mom always said if you can’t work and talk at the same time, stop talking. Self-control. This trained us to be able to do both or realize when we needed to focus on one or the other. Many a wonderful conversation between mothers and daughters happens over, under, and around chores. This requires self-control and the love of a good talk.

Non-Frantic Environment: The next important part of managing conversation is maintaining a non-frantic home. Nothing smothers conversation faster than a frantic heart and mind and schedule.

The rhythms of our homes are our handmaids. They can aid us in establishing places for conversation. Yes, we may have to say, “I love you, but this absolutely has to be done right now, can we talk when I finish?” Conversation is communication, and proper communication produces calm homes. But if we never stop to listen to our children explain the value of their rocks, or teens share a ridiculous and wild opinion, or our husbands sort through something, sharing or directing, then we need to reset our priorities. We need to look at our commitments and scale them back.

I had to learn this. Evening conversations are hard for me. We’ve tried, but I just can’t focus or engage. Breakfast is our main time to talk. This has its drawbacks. Our morning can go up in smoke and I still have to stop by about five. Conversations take a lot of energy from me and I’ve left the table in a total brain fog. But, mornings are better than evenings and conversation is important. To do this, I limit my morning commitments, understanding that any morning thing I say ‘yes’ to is going to cut down the time my husband and I have to communicate.

As a pastor’s wife, there are many times we have to have long and hard conversations at any given time. Some weeks it feels like all we do is talk. I’m learning how to keep my commitments, even self-imposed ones, limited. Some weeks this means I feel like I’m on light duty. I try to not fill those weeks up, but view them as battery charging times because there will be weeks where my simple life is too much and things have to be shuffled so talking has room.

The point is! One of the big elements of a well-tended home is room for conversation. A big part of facilitating that is giving the whole family breathing room to mosey through a conversation, and that requires us not to live frantic lives. Conversations take time. If we can’t set aside a Saturday morning or a Friday night, if we can’t work and talk at the same time, if we don’t create environments, like a nice easy dinnertime, conversation won’t happen and our whole family will drift apart. There must be warmth, comfort, a cup of coffee, a glass of wine, a crackling fire, and pockets of time. If every moment of our days is chock full of stuff, conversation and families will drift apart and away.

Nourishing: The last component has two parts. First, to have a conversation we need things to talk about. Conversation doesn’t always have to be the baring of the innermost parts of our souls. They can be equally profitable if they’re just a loud and opinionated rampage about our favorite or most abhorred TV shows.

Books, movies, music, politics, philosophy, sports, arts, theology, and culture can provide wonderful conversation, but only if we utilize them. We, ladies, have to actually stop and watch a show or read a book, enjoy a podcast or check the news.

We will have to attempt to be well-rounded women. It encourages our husband when we ask deeper questions, and grows well-rounded children. We have to expose, with care, ourselves and our children to things we may not agree with to engage in discernment. We practice looking for good and truth. This doesn’t mean we have free rein to watch vile things. We need to know our temptations and what is right and wrong. This does mean that something we disagree with can spark a more lively conversation than something we all agree on. This doesn’t mean we don’t guard our children, but guarding is training, not ignorance. Ignorance is dangerous. As always, follow your husband’s lead on this.

Second, as the tenders, homemakers, HearthKeepers, hearthlights, we nourish conversation with food. Hardly any good conversation happens away from food and drink. Food is the platform from which conversation springs. Drink is the oil that makes words flow. I can’t help thinking that if we want to nourish an environment for us, our husbands, our children, friends and family, we must take cooking seriously. Nothing invites a good long talk like a hot drink. A bottle of wine shared between spouses or friends brings laughter and long conversation into a room. A pot of hot soup, a roast, charcuterie boards, any favorite meal, even PB&Js can be the catalyst for souls uniting through words. Taking cooking seriously is the best way to create a nourishing environment for conversation.

One last thing, conversations should never be gossip or backbiting. We aren’t to talk ill of the people around us but to give them grace, even in our speech, even if there is an honest issue to deal with.

We women especially struggle with gossip. Let’s go to work.

If we can’t talk without talking about someone, then let’s go to work on filling our minds with other things. Let’s feed on some rich art, history, and theology and stop feeding on the poison fruit of gossip. We need to pay attention to how we speak about our kids, husbands, churches, and others in our homes and outside them.

What and how we converse is a huge element in our homes. Are we brash and bossy? Do we have to be right and be the focus? Do we know how to listen? Do we know how to make sure the person we’re with feels listened to?

Wise and edifying conversation doesn’t mean no discussion of the frivolous. Sometimes the frivolous is the best catalyst for wisdom and edification. Sometimes discussions of recreation, entertainment, and hobbies are unusually sanctifying. Don’t discount their value. People have been discussing the roads and weather probably since Adam and Eve. But we should also work to enrich our conversations. Let’s dig into theology, history, and philosophy. Let’s help our families by being self-controlled, non-frantic, and providing nourishment so that conversation becomes a cornerstone of our home.

Stagnation, Atmosphere, and Conversation. These are all intangible elements of our homes. Let’s intentionally engage them, not ignore them!