I’m sitting at McDonalds. I came here to write. Not because it’s comfortable or cozy—it’s not--but because I wanted to get out of the house, and I like the coffee here better than Starbucks. Starbucks gives me a headache. It also costs three times as much. Presumption has a price.
Two booths over, there are three old guys talking, drinking their coffee too. That’s a tale told at McDonalds all over the world. If Panera is the morning campfire circle of Bible studies, and Starbucks is the Mecca of business meetings and college students, McDonalds is the front porch of senior citizens. I don’t fit any of those categories today. I could go to Dunkin, but that place is the abomination that causes desolation.
Anyway, back to the old guys. I’m guessing they are between 75 and 80. There were here before I got here. I know I shouldn’t be listening, but their conversation is fascinating, ranging in subject matter from cancer treatments to farming to Alzheimer’s to transcontinental shipping to the Mississippi River levy system to classified documents to protests of the 70s to the Sunday School teacher they had when they were 12 to political extremism to the value animals add to our lives. “Can you imagine life without animals?” one of them just said. These men are good natured, smart, non-dogmatic, funny, thoughtful, and good listeners. I have a feeling there is more life experience and wisdom in that booth than all the fries in all the freezers of all the McDonalds in America. They have a lot to teach me.
Most of all, how to have a good conversation.
Good conversation is a gift too rarely enjoyed these days. Between Covid, social media, echo chambers, fake news, and ChatGPT, there doesn’t seem to be much of it going on. So much of our conversation is just a regurgitation of what we’ve been told elsewhere or attempts to win others to our point of view. Good conversation is interactive, meandering, curious, and untainted by the need to convince anyone of anything. I wish I had more of it. I treasure it when it happens.
I know I’m not alone. In the past week I’ve had several conversations with folks who just wanted to talk. They needed the eye contact, the gentle tete-a-tete between civilized, kind and interested people. They wanted to talk about things that mattered, things they were thinking about, things that weren’t stuck in the narcissistic tunnels of their own selfish situation. They didn’t want to argue. They wanted to process. They wanted to speak, but they also wanted to listen.
We all need that more than we realize – conversation not overwhelmed by agenda or cliché—where the rivers run a little deeper and the world seems a little nicer and we can talk about something that stretches our minds and perspectives without getting worked up like a angry badger whose hole has been invaded by dogs.
Yes, we all need more of that.
I have a group of young men I meet with monthly. They are young fathers, former students. It’s in the evening, so we sit around microbrews instead of coffee. We talk about life, family, how to be good dads and citizens of heaven. Football sneaks in there, too, of course. I “lead” the group, but the conversation goes wherever it needs to go. These moments give me more life than I can describe here.
Yes, we all need more of that. A place to talk, process, learn, listen.
I’m listening to a podcast right now about the book of Revelation. The teacher questions the predominant interpretation of the book as a coded timeline of the future, and instead suggests it was a challenge to the early church to persevere in the face of Roman persecution. It’s not a light topic. I wish I had someone to talk to about it.
I came here today to write, with no idea what I was going to write about. I got my coffee and sat down. In so doing, I found out I not only need to write, I need to talk. I need someone to talk to, in meandering and meaningful ways that come too infrequently. Thanks, old guys sitting next to me, for letting me in on your conversation today.
We all need good conversation. Let’s grab coffee. As long as it’s not at Dunkin.