May your political conversations be few, fruitful, and face-to-face.

Simple, but far from easy. I am a preparer and a pre-griever, which is to say that I am already feeling tired and weak from the political season that has not even happened yet. As I am prayerfully preparing and leading my heart and the hearts of my children for another polarizing presidential election, I am going back to the very basics.

A Conversation vs. A Communication

When we enter into any conversation, let alone a political one, we need to remember that we are not merely dealing with inert information. We are two sentient beings attempting to form and be formed with information. We are concerned with the person receiving and processing the information, not merely getting the information out there.

In his essay “Local Knowledge in the Age of Information.” Wendell Berry offers helpful insights regarding the nature of conversation. Conversation, he says, differs from a mere communication which can be (and, often is, one-sided). Communication (think news report) requires an active sender and a passive receiver. Conversation, on the other hand, requires two active, independent, yet interacting parties. Berry continues with the following:

“A conversation, unlike a ‘communication,’ cannot be prepared ahead of time, and it is changed as it goes along by what is said. Nobody beginning a conversation can know how it will end. And there is always the possibility that a conversation, by bringing its participants under one another’s influence, will change them, possibly for the better.”

I think that many of us enter into political “conversations” hoping and expecting them to be a communication. Getting our terms right from the beginning will help us enter into conversations when, and only when, we are truly ready for honest human communication with another (who has a story, a view, a perspective, and an opinion that are not the same as my own).

Three Types of Conversations

Speaking of conversations, I was greatly helped by a mentor, Dr. Dave Friese, about the three different types of conversations: competitive, informative, and connecting.

As a mother of three very argumentative and competitive young men, I can explain competitive conversation with great expertise. In these conversations, we are not necessarily listening for understanding but rather listening only to load our conversational guns in response. These conversations are marked with passion, one-upping, and a quick cadence. They have their place. Anyone who has sat through the theatrical wonder that is our family debate between soccer or baseball as the harder sport can attest to the entertainment value of competitive conversations, but I most certainly don’t think they are helpful when it comes to politics.

Informative conversations are less heated and more factual. Genuine listening is happening, but the goal is the passing on of information and facts. I think of my children as they prepare for their informative speeches (“How to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich”). Hearts are rarely engaged, though many facts are flying. Sometimes in these conversations, being right is more important than being loving, present, or gentle.

The last type of conversation, connecting conversation, is the level where real change and transformation tends to happen. We rarely get here in conversations, because in order to have a connecting conversation, both parties must feel seen, soothed, safe, and secure. The prerequisites of trust and care provide a safety net for honest, vulnerable sharing even when we disagree with the other sitting before us. The goal is mutual understanding, even when we do not agree and may not ever.

In a digitized world where competitive and informative conversations are our constant background (and foreground if you allow push notifications), connecting conversations take work, time, energy, and maturity. That’s why my prayer for this upcoming political season is that your political conversations be few and face-to-face. We can’t have connecting conversations online. We can’t have them with everyone we meet. We enter into them at-will with great care and caution. We understand that connecting conversations are holy ground where another is vulnerably before me as I am before them.

Fruitful Conversations vs. Empty Arguments

We cannot enter into a political conversation without admitting our biases. To say that you are not biased is akin to saying that the laws of gravity don’t apply to you. It is a prideful and unproductive starting point to deny that you have preconceived notions and tend to see the world through your preconceived notions. In his helpful book The Righteous Mind, Jonathan Haidt offers research that proves that humans are biased to receive only the information that supports their preconceived notions. The facts are not the naked facts, rather, they are bathed in our biases. Left to ourselves and our intuitions, we see what we want to see, and we hear what we want to hear.

Fruitful conversations can only take place when we are honest with our starting point and our biases. Conversations that lead to the fruit of the Spirit, to considering others better, to deeper understanding about another with whom we do life, are profitable and productive. Yet, not all conversations with all people on all topics are profitable and fruitful.

Even this morning, I was reading Paul’s words to Titus who had a tall task as a pastor in Crete. He was surrounded by a Cretan culture of empty-talk and arguments around genealogies and myths. In this culture, Paul reminded Titus to judge the root by the fruit. If conversations with someone continued to end in “foolish controversies, genealogies, dissensions, and quarrels about the law,” which were “unprofitable and worthless,” Titus was to speak to them once or twice and then walk away (Titus 3:8-11). Paul had similar advice to Timothy, saying, “Have nothing to do with foolish, ignorant controversies; you know that they breed quarrels. And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness” (2 Timothy 2:23–25).

As we prepare for the upcoming political season, it is my prayer that our political conversations would be few, fruitful, and face-to-face. May Paul’s words to Timothy and Titus ring louder than election ads or controversy-cookers. May Paul’s personal prayer request for the Colossians pass right along to us in this political boiling pot: “Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person” (Colossians 4:6).