Discoursing with the Comatose

I know someone who recently went to see a friend who had a terrible brain event, and has slipped into a coma. [The man in the coma, by the way, is a young man named Brendan Johnson. He and his wife are expecting their fifth child, so keep them in your prayers]. Now, have you ever gone to visit someone in a coma? The other person isn’t responsive, of course, but you’re doing your best to talk, to hold their hand, and to act as naturally as possible under these very tragic and upsetting circumstances. And it’s really challenging.

But here’s the strange thing: talking to a person in a coma isn’t necessarily all that different from talking to any person you’re just getting to know. In both cases, it’s challenging, and in both cases, it’s a challenge you have to face out of love.

Trying to Reach the Soul with Words

When you talk to somebody in a coma, or someone who can’t respond for some other medical reason, you don’t know for sure whether you’re reaching them. You’re just doing your best to say words that you hope will reach them, and maybe, just maybe, if you reach them, you can lure their own soul to the surface. But this is the wild existential fishing we all do when we have a conversation with someone we’re getting to know.

When you converse, your soul, hidden inside the body, is coming to the surface with words, and then you cast those words towards another body, where another soul lies hidden. There’s a soul in there; it’s hidden and mysterious, and like a fisherman trying to pick the most appealing lure, you send words from your body to that other body, in the hope of enticing or stimulating the other soul to come to the surface.

You try to find their interests. You try to figure out how they think, what they like, where they hurt, what they think they know. It’s the most incredible art form, the art of conversation: one soul using words to lure another soul to the surface so that it can be known. And this is the art of coming to know and to be known. The art of evangelization, friendship, and mutual encouragement to holiness.

Obscuring the Soul

Of course, it’s possible to talk to another human being and not invite a surfacing of the soul. In fact, a lot of talk that we do is trying to avoid getting to know the other, and trying to avoid revealing ourselves. Real conversation reveals the soul by talking about matters of substance: important matters, values, mutual stories, politics, religion, family, ultimate things and personal things.

Talking about ultimate things reveals your convictions. Talking about personal things reveals your character and experience. But it’s easy to talk about subjects that are neither personal nor ultimate. An easy example is sports, where you talk about all the details of trivial activities that have to do with hitting or throwing or kicking some kind of ball or other. These activities aren’t bad, but they really have nothing to do with you. And they aren’t ultimate, so you don’t have to share your core convictions when you talk about them. And the same goes for the whole world of entertainment. You can talk about shows and movies and celebrity gossip and video games, and never once really share an intimate truth about yourself or an ultimate conviction about the world.

This kind of conversation is easy, and it feels safe. But it’s not the path to the soul of the other; it won’t show you who other people are. It won’t lead you to a relationship, and it won’t lead them to God. Sports or entertainment are not a bad place to begin, but we don’t want to end there. We want to get to know the person.

Every person has a story and wants to be known. So begin with whatever they enjoy talking about, and then ask how it became part of their life. This moves the conversation naturally from the subject to their story.

For example: Suppose someone loves hockey and the Bruins. You can ask, “How did you become such a big Bruins fan?” Then listen closely to the answer because they will begin to reveal something of their story. Now you are no longer talking merely about hockey. You have entered his personal story. The superficial subject has become a doorway into their memories, their relationships, and ultimately the person themself.

Begin with the subject. Ask for the story. Then stay with what matters.

Practice Makes Perfect

Real conversation, fishing to try and get another soul to reveal itself, is a difficult art to acquire. That’s why so many people are scared to host, their scared to talk to strangers; they’re afraid of reunions and even going to the barber’s or the hairdresser’s. Because they’re not good at conversation. And why? Because they haven’t practiced!

There’s a great scene in the novel Pride and Prejudice, involving the main female protagonist (Elizabeth Bennet) and the main male protagonist (Mr. Darcy). Elizabeth is playing piano and criticizing Mr. Darcy for not taking the trouble to converse graciously with strangers. Mr. Darcy tries to give an excuse: “I certainly have not the talent which some people possess of conversing easily with those I have never seen before. I cannot catch their tone of conversation, or appear interested in their concerns, as I often see done.” In other words, he’s saying he’s just not good at conversation. He lacks the talent. But Elizabeth, still playing the piano, doesn’t let him get away with that. She says, “My fingers do not move over this instrument in the masterly manner which I see so many women’s do… But then I have always supposed it to be my own fault – because I would not take the trouble of practicing.”

That’s absolutely right: the art of good conversation, of using words to bring the soul to the surface, is like any other skill. You get good at it the more you practice. Don’t complain that it’s difficult, or that you don’t know how to do it. Just get out there and do it.

Resolution

We are learning to know and love people so that, when the right moment comes, we can invite them to encounter Jesus in prayer, in the Word of God, in the sacraments, or simply by taking the next right step on the path to Him. But we will not have earned the right to make that invitation until we have first demonstrated that we know, understand, love, and care for them.

So what is our resolution? If we want to become better at the art of good conversation, then we need to practice. Have a conversation with someone today. Begin with something that interests them. Ask how it became part of their life. Then listen closely for the story, asking questions about what they reveal that matters to them, and ask one more question about that.

Remember: Begin with the subject. Ask for the story. Then stay with what matters.

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