May 16, 2017 SHARE: Reading time: 2 minutes. Did you ever meet someone and think, “There’s a lot going on in there!” The truth is, there’s a lot going on inside of every one of us. I love the question, “If you could have dinner and spend the evening with one person in history, who would it be?” That will stimulate some curiosity, wouldn’t it? After Jesus, of course, I think about Luther, Stan Musial, Oscar Robertson, Frank Oz, Einstein (no, forget Einstein; I’d be lost) and Meriwether Lewis. Maybe a more important question for us would be, “What have you learned from the six people closest to you this week?” Dinner with Isaac Newton is a fantasy, but that’s no reason not to be curious about what’s stirring around inside of people. Today’s water analogy for the Lutheran Wellness Wheel is the old fashioned water pump. Still waters are not the only waters that run deep. Everyone’s water’s run deep, quiet people and noisy people alike. Long before the information age inundated us with “T.M.I.,” God gave us each other. For ages, humanity cherished the wisdom and insight of people who had been around the block a few times before us. Why not prime that pump with a few good questions, pump the handle with a few more follow-ups and drink deeply of the stories you hear that just might amaze you? My grandmother was, to say the least, a little wacky. By the time I was old enough to listen to her stories, she was getting a little dingy, a little “eccentric” we used to say. She had some crazy ideas about life and people that you just had to take with a grain of salt and say, “Well, that’s Grandma!” But if you would be patient enough to bore down a little deeper, to pump her handle a few times, there was some very interesting insight into life from a girl who grew up the daughter of a newspaper publisher on the prairies of North Dakota. She drew some odd conclusions sometimes, but she had some real insight into people. My dad was like that, too. He’s gone now and I regret not listening to him even more than I did. These days, I love lunch together in our office. And I’ve learned more about life in the church by traveling the synod for five years than I learned in the previous thirty. Thanks for sharing your wisdom. Who in your world needs a good listen? What’s a good question to prime the pump? Where are the deep waters in your church? In your neighborhood? In your family? That’s Intellectual Wellbeing. You might be enriched more by 10 minutes with the person down the hall than you are by an hour on Wikipedia! Thanks for reading. Do you serve in a multiple staff setting in a church, Lutheran school, university or social service ministry? Discover how a Ministry Team Wellness Workshop can help enhance your team ministry by building the unity, spiritual life and communication essential to partnership in ministry. Contact Program Director Darrell Zimmerman for more information.