Last week I traveled almost 2,000 miles to attend a theology conference. I disappeared from my world for a week and traveled to a far-off, distant land called Idaho. People noticed I was gone. They want to know why, tell me they missed me, and ask about my trip. But they show no interest in the conference itself, just in my absence. If I tell them about visiting my daughter for a couple of days and traveling with her that satisfies both their curiosity and their duty to take an interest in my life as a friend.
The conference itself has left me more aware of the need to "see" people, i.e., to focus on them and love them. One thing that distracts me in that area is when they show enough interest in me to get me talking at length about myself. I become more interested in what I am saying than in my long-suffering friend who is stuck listening. It's obvious when that happens. My own sad self becomes the star of the show, which is not particularly edifying to anyone involved in the exchange.
Thus far, no one has been either interested enough or duty-bound enough to actually ask me about the conference, what I learned, who I saw, the nature of the sessions, etc. A few people have asked about the theme. When I tell them it was about love, they look a little puzzled, but don't pursue the topic. A theological conference about love? What do love and theology have to do with each other? Curiosity is there, but not on a level worth pursuing.
I've told a couple of people more than they wanted to know about the logistics of the trip -- those who are most duty-bound to listen to my experiences. Someone else told me she wants to hear all about the conference -- another time. With only one friend in my everyday world, have I shared anything that came out of the conference itself. That person didn't know I had been gone. Our paths don't intersect enough for her to notice. But they did at one time and she's a good friend. She came into my world this week and asked a generic "how have you been" question. I responded by prompting her with a smile to ask about my trip to Idaho. And she did. I gave her a brief report along the same lines I have given others. The difference is that I could tell she was interested and open to hearing more. When the conversation took a direction that reminded me of something I had learned at the conference, I inserted a brief comment about it into the conversation. She listened and responded with interest.
The "flying under the radar" title to this comes out of the realization that I could have been hunting polar bear in Alaska last week rather than actually attending the theology conference with no particular discomfort when someone turned their radar on me and demanded a trip report. All I needed was a couple of days with my daughter on the way to Alaska to put on my official report and everything else could slide by undetected.
This is not a bad thing. It's not like I'm going to start lying about my outings. My accountability for doing what I say I'm doing and living honorably doesn't depend on people grilling me for details. The reason it interests me has more to do with the give-and-take nature of relationships. Friendships involve two-way communication. I talk to you. You talk to me. In some friendships, I spend more time on the receiving end; in others (or in the same friendships at other times), I do more talking than listening. It seems that people would be hesitant to share deeply with me if I don't respond with some type of vulnerability on my own part. However, I'm noticing that listening to other people often forms a bond that doesn't require more than surface information on my side. Many people never notice that they are sharing more of themselves and their thoughts with me than I am sharing in return. In fact, they seem quite satisfied with that arrangement.
Sometimes I have a need to talk about things as an aid in processing various happenings, but I don't often have a desire to tell everyone I know about it. I'm pleased to realize that there's no need to share more than surface details even when I disappear from my world for a week. People are easily satisfied by simplified, incomplete explanations for such absences. It doesn't take much to satisfy them that whatever happened isn't worth their effort to probe into it.
The nature of relationships is a subject with limitless fascination to me.
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