Alison and I are alike in a lot of ways. By the time we talk about most things, we already agree. But whenever we discuss something we’ve read together, we are very different.
I’m a smart person and I don’t like saying banal things. When discussing readings in college classes, I rarely bothered to answer the professor’s questions because I had moved a few steps further. When I spoke out with what I was thinking, I saw blank looks from my classmates. I always thought it was because I was so much smarter.
But I know that Alison is smart, and so am I, and we have the same problem. When we settle down to discuss a book or article, there’s always an awkward pause as we consider all the true but insultingly obvious things we could say. Whoever gives the first opinion, the other invariably disagrees or has to ask a few questions before it makes sense. Starting from the same observations, we arrive at very different critiques. I enjoy that we bore down on different points and frame the reading so analytically that the equally-obvious observations of the other become fresh and exciting.
The whole arc of our relationship has taught us to respect each other so much that thoughts and opinions we would consider obviously (but not provably) wrong come to deserve our attention. There are numerous books, movies, foods, ideas, people that I came to respect only because of a willingness to share with Alison.
If I can be excused for a theological digression, the widening of our realm of acceptance is part of the vocation of marriage. All vocations are a way to experience giving and receiving love as God does. God’s love reaches to all people and all of creation. We can’t grasp for such universality, because we are limited and dependent. But joining with another person invites us to look at from the inside, rather than observing from the outside, the love another person has for creation and share in that love.
I hope that coming to know and love me has introduced Alison to just as much a change of perspectives and perhaps in future entries we can together about the favorite things we’ve learned to love from each other.
Adam, I can relate, but differently. When a professor would ask a question in class only to be faced with a heavy silence and downward-cast eyes, I would chime in to break the silence and encourage the professor a little (we -do- care! I/Some of us -did- do the reading!), and perhaps to provide another springboard for class discussion points by other students.
ReplyDeleteIn my lovely friendship with my sweetie, sometimes I'll offer an opinion or current event connection or pull out a detail or reference from a news article that I -know- he's intelligent to have already recognized, himself. Nonetheless, bringing it forward gets it out of the way, and hopefully opens the door to whatever further insights he may have. Once I have made even a small critique of an op/ed piece or praised a particular example of rhetoric, he can then choose to respond to the author, or to what I've said.
Because I'm easily the more loquacious of the two, I treasure the moments in which he releases his thoughts in verbal crystallization, and am careful to make sure that even my strong opinions leave space for him to feel he can make a valid counter-opinion.
Yup, loving the person(s) with whom you converse teaches all sorts of virtues, from patience and kindness to grace and intellectual expansion (is that a virtue?) :-)