Mama didn’t teach me not to talk to strangers!
I’ve met some of the most interesting people just by striking up conversations with folks that I meet in the grocery store.
Just recently I met a “would be” friend if I could just remember what her name was. I must take along a pen for just such a purpose.
Anyway I quipped how I love shopping Brookshires because their produce was always so fresh and the customer service so great! She chimed in what I was getting ready to say “I only buy cat food at a competitor because their prices are better on cat food.”
Those words were just coming out of my mouth!
An instant friend because we knew that we are cat lovers! Not an interest we all share.
Back to my bottom line if there is one.
I’ve noticed that talking to strangers is becoming a nice pastime for some of us baby boomers in our second childhood.
In other parts of the country it might not be so wise to talk to strangers but here in the South we seem to understand the beauty of spontaneous child-like conversation among those we don’t know so well.
My friend, the late Gypsy Damaris Boston, may have said it best when she commented recently in one of her Times columns about how we don’t use the front porch anymore for conversation and in fact the front porch has all but been done away with on many houses today.
In the backwoods of Arkansas where I was born at home in 1948 near Sulphur Springs, Arkansas, in a house built in the 1840’s, we rode to town in a horse drawn wagon until 1955 before moving five miles into town at South West City, Missouri because of daddy’s declining heath. Anyway we had no electricity or running water. About the only people we saw was a neighbor or two who would sit outside in the evenings while my sister, Alice, and I played or laid on the grass waiting for the first star to come out at night or trying to catch the fire flies who kept us company while the adults talked.
Anyway as we have become more remote, we seem to have lost the art of conversation as the social media, televisions and air conditioning have shut down staying outside at night. We have lost something in return.
We have become more disconnected from each other.
Too often we come to church as a routine. I call it “rote” religion where we punch time clock.. We appear to not really look at each other when we talk. Life can become a habit. In the process of having more and more we are losing what we crave most in our quiet hours.
We have given up feeding our spirits with human connections, the kind of bonding that can only be found in heart talk which may start out as casual conversation until we reach another realm.
Most of us need to be joined to kindred spirits.
One way to find friends is to make small talk with those we meet in church or wherever our paths cross!
For some of us “Silver Sneakers” the grocery stores serve their purpose if we dare to talk to strangers.
Whatever all of this means I do not know but I think we will mostly agree that the heart has a longing which can only be satisfied in reaching within and finding new friends wherever we they are.
For me I know that Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever and that He always gets me to the right place at the right time placing those within my path who become lifelong friends who make my life whole.
For this I am forever grateful!
Contact Sarah at [email protected]