What do We do When Others Don't Want to Talk about God?

[[Dear Sister, is it difficult for you to communicate with someone who is "allergic" to God or to talk about God? I wondered if you have trouble with that since you are on a spiritual path and some people are not. I am in love with Jesus and my family is on a more temporal path. I would like to talk with them about Jesus but feel kind of pressured not to do that. Isn't it part of my vocation to convert people to Christ? In your vocation I guess you don't meet a lot of people who don't believe in Christ, but what do you do when other people just don't want to talk about him? Should we cut them out of our lives because they are at a lower level spiritually? I am struggling with all of this.]]

Important questions, thanks for asking them!  You are talking about two interrelated things, 1) being on a spiritual path, and 2) talking about that path to others. Both are difficult and the second may be more difficult than the first. So let me talk about these two things in order. First, what does it mean to be on a spiritual path? I define a spiritual path in terms of the Holy Spirit. It is a path we are inspired and empowered to take by the Holy Spirit. Moreover, it is a path that helps us to achieve the fullness of our own humanity with all that characterizes that. When you approach the spiritual from this perspective, almost anything can be or become a spiritual path and that certainly includes all aspects of the spatiotemporal world. 

There are a couple of things I call to mind in reminding myself of this: first, the Word of God was fully and exhaustively revealed to us in Jesus, a human being who shared fully in our spatiotemporality (that is, our historicity), even to the point of sin and godless death; Secondly, the Catholic Church is a Sacramental Church built on God's transfiguration of spatiotemporal realities. We belong to a church in which the elements of this world are sacred and capable of being transformed into symbols of eternity. Thus water becomes capable of washing us of sin, bread and wine can become the Body and Blood of Christ, oil is made capable of healing and strengthening us with the power of the Holy Spirit, and this happens not only via the grace of God but because of what these are innately. 

As part of this second element, I am also reminded of c 604 and the vocation of consecrated virgins living in the world and the transfigured (or eschatological) secularity they live in the name of the Church. (By the way, secular might be a better word for what you are trying to express than temporal.) With sacraments, the Church says that God can transfigure this world and make it a symbol of the new heaven and new earth our Creator God is in the process of creating in and through Jesus, his Christ. The Church asks us to take this world seriously and see it in the way God does. This has implications in the way we approach everything around us. We begin to look for the Holy Spirit's presence in everything, and we begin to see the essential holiness in even the most mundane. 

Once we begin looking in this way we also begin to characterize dimensions of what we see by words which are very much of God without being overtly religious. For instance, we begin to see truth and beauty, or in looking at creatures we may see courage, integrity, compassion, hope, aspiration, joy, sincerity, and generosity. These characteristics and innumerable others are of God, they are divinely inspired and constituted.  God IS truth, beauty, integrity, etc; He is the ground and source of these things and of all else that exists. My sense is that when we begin to look at the world and talk about it in terms such as these, we can talk about God in ways that are illuminating and even revealing while working around the "allergy" you first mentioned that afflicts so many people today.  Let me point out that carrying on conversations in these terms can be very challenging and that is especially true for people who consider themselves "spiritual" or "religious." For these people, conversing without using explicit references to God or God's Christ demands a lot of thought and prayer; especially, it requires a profound sense of God and the way God is related to this world.

While I agree that your ministry may involve proselytization, I don't think this is the approach I would use with people I love. Our families are captive audiences, so to speak and ordinarily, it is not our job to convert them, except in one major way. We are meant to love them and to indicate who we are as Christians by our love. Remember that being Christian means being truly human in the way Christ reveals what that means. It is our vocation to become human in this way and then, if and when we are asked to do so, to express to others why we are capable of this. What Christians witness to is the God who is love-in-act and what that love makes possible in terms of wholeness, hopefulness, compassion, courage, integrity, wisdom, etc. That witness may never require us to speak the words "God" or "Jesus" or "Christ", and in some cases speaking this way may be counterproductive and even destructive. The bottom line here is if someone does not want to talk about God, or is allergic to explicit Godtalk, then use the language they are comfortable with! If you do this in love, every word will be infused with the presence of God.

The notion that one person is at a lower level spiritually than we are is a judgment we human beings are not capable of making.  I sometimes wonder if it is a way of seeing that even makes sense. But we are not called to judge in this way; God asks us to love others as we love ourselves; loving another means helping them to become and be the persons they are called and meant by God to be. What I am encouraging you to do is to invest your energy in becoming fully human yourself and then (in light of that commitment) invest in inviting or even summoning others to do so as well. Use the categories, activities, and interests that drive the other person in order to learn who they are, and love them to greater and greater authenticity and wholeness. 

What you need to trust is that you are doing this in God's name (that is, in God's presence and power). Even when you do not use the word God or speak of Jesus explicitly, if you are loving the other you are doing the work of God in their life. If you are allowing them to love you, you are doing the same thing. You and I may be in different places spiritually, but neither of us is higher than the other. That is an idea you must really make your own if your communication and sharing with others is to be credible or compelling to them. Look for the commonalities you share with the other, the places where you can use the same language and truly share with each other at the level of your hearts. Since this is rooted in truth and love, it is rooted in God. Again, trust that.

Finally, while I love to talk about Christ and God with others, it is not usually something that happens -- even with parishioners for whom spirituality is every bit as dominant in their lives as it is in mine. Sometimes, with some folks, we never speak of God or faith explicitly. However, I don't cut them out of my life. We talk about what is going on in our lives, our struggles and joys, our challenges, successes, and failures. We do what Mary and Joseph likely did with their neighbors and relatives (including discussing and consulting about their own bewilderment at what parenting Jesus means!!). 

On the other hand, I don't mean we avoid speaking of God should it seem important and timely to do that. Of course not! But God need not (and should not) be the only acceptable topic of our lives. (Actually, if God is the only topic someone wants to discuss or, worse yet, is capable of discussing, then the problem is theirs, and solutions need to be found.) I tend not to run into this problem much except in those who are tentative or insecure in their own spirituality or perhaps, in their ability to relate to others. Sometimes this is combined with a fresh conversion experience and the result is nonstop talk about God. But, beyond a certain point, this is not helpful for the person talking, nor for those with whom they are trying to relate. We cannot and must not use God or our purported spirituality as an excuse or coverup for not being able to communicate or share with others in everyday ways. 

God made us in his image and likeness; we who are imago Dei are becoming more and more imago Christi as we become more and more human, and that occurs to the extent we are loved and freed to love by others. Learn to perceive and talk in terms of the very best and most truly human and ordinary dimensions of reality and your speech with others will be innately and implicitly Godly. Again, I ask you to trust that. Learn to love others as God loves them and you. Then, in time, together you may speak more explicitly of God and the way God in Christ has transformed your life. When this happens, others will be interested and your speech will be more credible and compelling. These are a few of the things we must keep in mind when we deal with the kinds of questions you have posed. The difficulties you are trying to negotiate are worth the struggle you are now experiencing. Be assured of my prayers in this. I hope this response is helpful for you.