In the Beginning was the Conversation

 It’s been a little while since I last wrote. Lent has come and gone, Easter has dawned, and now we find ourselves in the gentle unfolding of Eastertide, a season of renewal when both the earth and our souls stretch toward the light. During this sacred in between, I’ve been quietly received as a postulant in a dispersed Franciscan order, stepping into a path that feels both ancient and alive.

Today I sat with the opening words of the Gospel of John, those iconic, echoing lines that stir something ancient and holy in the soul: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

I’ve read it dozens of times, but this morning I approached it slowly, prayerfully. I was doing a little lectio divina, which, in case you’re unfamiliar, is Latin for “sacred reading,” or, if you’re me with a second cup of coffee and a wandering mind, “let’s read slowly and see what surprises us today.”

This time, the surprise came via a fresh translation, or maybe a better one. Victoria Loorz, in her beautiful book Church of the Wild, writes that the Greek word Logos, usually rendered “Word,” might actually be better translated as “Conversation.”

Let that sink in: In the beginning was the Conversation.

I don’t know about you, but that shifts everything for me. It takes the idea of God from a cold pronouncement to a living relationship. Before stars, before molecules, before timelines or theology, there was conversation. Not small talk, not debate, but a holy, living communion between the persons of the Trinity. An eternal exchange of love and joy and wild, radiant being.

And Christ, we’re told, is the embodiment of that conversation, God’s voice made flesh. Which means that the life of Jesus is not just a sermon we’re meant to memorize but a

conversation we’re invited into. Through him, we get swept up into that ancient rhythm, that divine back and forth. We don’t just read the Word, we’re asked to respond.

And here’s where my head really starts spinning: All things came into being through the Conversation, and apart from it not one thing came into being that has come into being.

Which means the trees are part of the conversation. The river is. The dog snoring next to me as I write this is too. There is not a single part of this living, breathing world that doesn’t echo the tone of that original voice. The whole cosmos hums with the resonance of God’s dialogue.

It makes sense, then, that St. Francis didn’t just love creation, he talked to it. He called the sun his brother and the moon his sister. He listened for God in the rustle of the olive trees and the chatter of birds. Maybe he wasn’t being poetic or eccentric. Maybe he was just fluent in the original language.

So today I wonder, what would it mean to re-enter the conversation? Not just with God in the silence of prayer, but with the rest of creation? What if Christ is not only the bridge between God and humanity, but the bridge between us and every leaf, stream, and squirrel?

I have no neat answers. Just awe. And a sense that something sacred is stirring, inviting me to speak less and listen more. To pay attention. To hear the Word not only in Scripture, but in the wind and the wings and the wild.

In the beginning was the Conversation.

And somehow, we are still being spoken into.