Conversation Starters

 Everyone talks about the weather -- it's so hot; it's too cold; it's such a beautiful day!  The weather is for sure the one thing we all have in common, even perfect strangers.  It's the one topic we can surely connect on, no matter our background, faith, or political views.  I wonder how many deep friendships started with a comment about the weather.

Several years ago, we had some workmen at our house painting the carport.  I happened to be working in the yard at the time, and one of the workmen started talking to me about how hot it was at the time.  The first thing I knew, he was telling me that his mother's name was Gail, spelled differently from mine, where he was born, and so on.  We had great conversation and great connection while he was waiting for the boss to arrive to begin the job.  

So many people have trouble connecting with God in prayer because it is hard for us to find common ground with Divinity.  In talking about prayer, Bishop Barron once said, "What about all these novenas, rosaries, written prayers, etc.?  Well, prayers lead to prayer."  In other words, as we open the door to conversation with God, He enters and finds common ground with us -- and then the real conversation begins.  

In the Psalms, we find every human emotion -- peace, joy, anger, hostility, resentment, fear, anxiety.... I find them to be great "conversation starters" for prayer, no matter where I am in life.  In the midst of the desert, hiding out from Saul's army, David prayed, "O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you;/ my soul thirsts for you,/ my body longs for you,/ in a dry and weary land where there is no water....Those who seek my life will be destroyed; they will go down into the depths of the earth.  They will be given over to the sword and become food for jackals" (Psalm 63).

David was nothing if not expressive!  But in his desperation, in his thirst, in his joy, in his anger, his songs certainly open the door for our own conversations with God, even if they are complaints!  For those of us who do not even know where to begin talking to God, it is so easy to open the Psalms and find one we can relate to, such as Psalm 61:

Hear my cry, O God; listen to my prayer.

 From the ends of the earth I call to you,

 I call as my heart grows faint;

Lead me to a rock that is higher than I. 

One thing I love about reading/praying the Psalms is that eventually they become part of me, and I instinctively begin to recite them when I need to express my joy, my fear, my desperation, my hope, etc. to God. They give me the words I need when I am almost inarticulate in addressing God -- and they eventually give me peace.  The fact that they were originally songs, set to music and sung in the Temple, makes them even more powerful.  How rich we would be if they became our songs too!