Edification

I briefly stepped out of my comfort zone this past week and asked someone who I don't have a close relationship with, to grab coffee with me. I was so over whelmed with the frequency and over exposure of the people around me that I was almost forced to seek a different sort of expression or personality. I knew one of the youth from a near by church (and from a different school) was on campus visiting some of the girls, who were currently in class, and as I was heading towards the exit of the school she caught my eye. Now I'm not one for spending time with girls who I don't know extremely well but at the moment, I needed to break out of my routine social atmosphere and felt that there may be potential for a more than superficial conversation with this person. As we drove to the corner Starbucks, to her surprise, I wasn't the person that she had perceived me to be and the the twenty minutes discussion far exceeded either one of our expectations of the other's ability to think and speak. Later in the week, we were again gathered together, but this time in a group of people who couldn't seem to move past surface level conversation. Recognizing the futility of the atmosphere, she singled me out by saying: "lets continue our conversation of the other day." Let me emphasize something very important: we never actually sat for coffee; she only accompanied me as I drove and picked up the coffee, so there is no essence of romance from either side.
We both sat and tried returning to what we had previously discussed and came to the conclusion that the interest in the previous discussion was not in the topic of the discussion, but rather in the "difficulty" of the discussion. It was evident that the momentary connection that we had taken notice of a few days prior was not a connection over a single topic but rather a connection over a desire for more. At that point, we both took a step back and realized that the value of our words amounted to more than the whole group's conversation: our talk took thinking, exposure, and had some essence of risk. It was by all means "demanding." By this point I had already spent the weekend with family and had snapped out of my strange self pity that I carried with me when we had previously talked and was more aware of the exchange that was taking place. To her credit, she had noticed the higher level of conversation before I had.
Why do we gather in uselessness? Why do we speak in that which has no value. Why is the voice not silenced in exchange for the ear's heightened sense of focus. Why are words used to mask rather than to expose. Why do real words feel more like judgment than edification, regardless of who they come from? Why do we waste words on each other rather than uplifting each other with love. Love is not in word but in action. Had Christ's crucifixion only been spoken about and the death never enacted then Christ would be the biggest hoax in history. Had St. Paul only said "Imitate me as I imitate Christ" without imitation then 14 out of the 27 new testament books would be falsified.
I like to talk and have always enjoyed exchanging ideas with people. In conversations that have no set focus I find myself lost in all the commotion and desiring to find one person who's eyes hold a deeper concern for the people around them than just if we should be going to Duncin'Donuts or Starbucks. In 1 Thessalonians 5:11 St. Paul's wisdom, and what I like to pin as a character trait, is displayed when he writes: "Therefore comfort each other and edify one another." Useless discussion between friends paints no picture except one of deception and indifference. I wonder how different this world would be if we could break down our own superficial walls and speak and act in love and edification.
But then I turn and ask my generation, how can we edify each other if we ourselves have nothing to offer?