AMY GOHDES-LUHMAN, Guest Columnist
Posted: Tuesday, October 27, 2009 10:36 pm

I have no idea what I am doing sometimes. I am horrible at small talk. I cling to the weather. And yet it seems like talking is a recurrent theme in my vocational life. I talk at church for a living and I talk in the classroom at St. Olaf where I teach. Talk, talk, talk. And now we have started a “talking group” at the church. We call it Belly of the Whale and it is for older high schoolers to 20-somethings, college kids and townies. And all we do is talk. For about an hour and a half at 7 p.m. on Wednesdays.

So far there are seven of us: four high schoolers, one townie, two college seniors. The conversations are interesting and the connections made are vital. There is something satisfying about observing relationships between people who can fix cars and people who can ace the ACTs. It is exciting.

Certainly one might hope the group forms into some sort of action group, a volunteer group maybe. But for now we just talk. Share your day kind of thing. Some times we snack on whatever we can find in the kitchen of the church basement.

Talk, talk, talk.

At 3 p.m. on Sunday, Nov. 8, the Moravian church will host its third Town Hall Meeting. More talking. Story-telling, question and answer. Our focus is addiction and recovery. It is not that we think Northfield is a horrible drug-addled town. It is just that when I talked to a kid recently about drugs in Northfield he said one of the three reasons he could easily use here was that no one talked. No one talked, everyone denied it. The other two reasons were access to a steady income and boredom. So I am going to keep my kids poor and busy, and I will talk them to death. Basically that is my plan.

A few weeks ago the Mayor’s Task Force on Youth Alcohol and Drug Use met and they were wondering what is it that the community needs to do to help youth? Is there a gap in service or attention for young adults who are not college-bound? Is there a way that the town can respond to its young adults beyond the individual family unit?

These are excellent questions. We at the church wonder about that, too. Churches are notorious for not being able to reach out to those ages 18-25. So we think about it a lot.

What is the right conversation to have? What should we be talking about? The Town Hall Meeting offers the community a chance to talk about addiction and recovery. What else can we talk about? What are you being quiet about? What would you like to say when someone says, “How are you?” Like me, do you sometimes cling to the weather?

Let’s talk.



— Amy Gohdes-Luhman is pastor at Main Street Moravian Church.