Friday at the annual James Satterwhite Training Academy retreat, my colleagues granted me and two colleagues with the "award" of "Most likely to engage someone in a conversation." I have been struggling to decide if this was a strength or should be considered less than complimentary...
I think that my struggle is over....
In her book, saving graces, Elizabeth Edwards writes of her father...
..."my father didn't need that. He could reach for the hands of strangers. He would corral teenagers at a table and ask them what they liked. He could tell nurses in the clinic how pretty they were. Each girl he passed by he'd say " Could she be? Well, she must be. Here's a princess. Imagine that, a princess, right here in the mall?" He would chat with cashiers as if he knew them, complimenting them on their hair or their eyes or their speed with which they worked. By they time they left, my father would know the life stories of the family in the next lane at the bowling alley. Why not pass the time with a cashier? You're not doing anything anyway. why not make friends with a bowling family? He we were a bowling family too.
My father was doing something most of us do or want to do- reaching for connections. Now, he has and still is an extreme example. and probably as a consequence, so am I. I am most likely not to change either, because the connections i have make have enriched me, sustained me, they have strengthened me by holding me up when I needed it, and they have strengthened me by letting me hold up my end when it was needed. My life is immeasurably better because i know that although we may say grace differently, or may not know how to say it at all, we all need each other."
