How Often Are You On Script?

Consider how many ordinary conversations you everyday, ordinary conversations that go something like this:

"Hello, how are you?"
"Hi. I'm fine. And you?"
"Aw, pretty good. What's going on?"
"Same old same old. And you?"
"Yeah, me too."
[Long, somewhat awkward pause here]
"Well, we should get together sometime."
"Yeah, let's do that."
"Right."
"Right."
"Well, I gotta run. Shoot, I'm already late!"
"Yeah, me too. Bye."
"Yeah, bye."

Chances are good that this kind of conversation constitutes most of the public conversations that you live through and in everyday. Most of us probably think of these kinds of conversations as necessary, obligations of "being social." Or perhaps as just rituals of politeness when you run into someone you know in the traffic of an ordinary day. If we ignored them we would be considered to be a snob, right?

But really these sorts of conversation are robing us of our ability to connect with each other in any meaningful way. They are scripts, used to acknowledge others, By using these mundane scripts we are exchanging relatively meaningless communication for genuine dialogue. We say so little to each other because we are so busy to say anything else - and just to strangers, but to our spouses, our children, and to those in our church family (to be honest, I can't think of a social setting that I use and experience social scripts more than on Sunday morning in the church).

One of the consequences of spending the majority of our interactions with others in "script mode" is that we begin to lose the art of talking - that is the ability to create inventive talk. To be creative. To have fun with others. Instead, we just talk, mostly out of obligation, which reduces our interaction with others to mere contexts for obligation to be enacted in. We become, literally, bored with each other. And why not? We have not learned how to take talk - the fundamental building block of any relationship - and make it into the pathway for our mutual and communal quest.

This form of communication, that is scripted obligation, is dangerous to our spiritual health. Spirituality is realized - as well as deepened - through recognizing and expanding meaningful communication to and through each other, not out of avoiding meaningful contact with others. "Take care, brethren, lest there should be in any one of you an evil, unbelieving heart, in falling away from the living God. 13 But encourage one another day after day, as long as it is called 'Today,' lest any one of you be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin" (Hebrews 3:12-13).

We need each other in order to growth spiritually and persevere to the end. But unfortunately most of us have learned all too well how to remain isolated even while in a crowd. We sit with others at church, we drive by neighbors countless times in a week, and we pass co-workers in the hallways and stairwells of our places of business - yet most of us feel alone. It's the same in our homes. I hear from teenagers all the time that at home, where they live with those who love them most, that they rarely engage in meaningful communication. They don't say it like that - they say, "May parents don't understand me" or "No one ever listens to me," but it all boils down to loneliness and scripted communication out of obligation rather than rooted in a genuine interest to grow closer together.

Our relationships and daily interactions should not be merely functional, they must be intentional and real. How else can we express true interest in another, care for those we love, or share the Gospel of Jesus Christ with the lost? How can we even know who is lost without unscripted, genuine interactions? I pray that the church, in general, would move off script and begin to really talk to each other. Amen?

Related resource: Divine Signs: Connecting Spirit to Community By H.L. Goodall, Jr.