Radio Transcript

Susan:
Hello, I’m Susan Diamond, they call me chief of pray and I’m one of the women of Prayables.com; an online prayer community for women of all faiths. 
I’m here with my girlfriend, Debbie Winton. 

Debbie:
Hey Susie.

Susan::
Hey there Debbie, we’re going to be talking about talking today. When we get started, I think what we'll do is explore different generations and how they do their talking, and just what it is we all talk about. We should be very good at that.

Debbie:
My area of expertise I think.

Susan
I got a great mentor in my mother – she’s the queen of telephone talking, is there anyone you can think of, besides me, who’s a queen bee talker? 

Debbie:
Well I was just thinking besides myself, I mean, I am truly from a generation of talkers. I think it's in my DNA; my mom was a great talker, my grandma, who telephones probably weren't invented when she was born ended up being a great phone talker. To me, it's one of the delights in life.

Susan:
Well I urge you to get in on the conversation! If you’re listening live, log in to Blog Talk Radio and join us in the chat room. When you’re listening on the Prayables.com website, please comment. We’ll respond! To read today’s blog, prayer and transcript from the show, visit www.prayables.com and type in “radio girlfriends” in the search box on the upper right side of the page. Because, I’m going to Share selections from my blog called: Radio Girlfriends. 

Then we’ll finish up with a highly motivating prayer called Gal Pals by Lori Strawn. Lori is my Prayables girlfriend, Pray maker and editor of the new Prayables book, Personal Peace. Here comes my shameless plug, Personal Peace: Prayers for Women of all Faiths - we’ll talk about it later in the show because it's a good time to give yourself a gift of prayer.

Debbie:
Oh sorry Susie, I was on the phone. No, I'm just kidding. But I usually am just always on the phone and if you ask my husband, well you know, sometimes I'm talking to you and I'll say 'Wait, wait, wait I have to get off the phone' because I don't want my husband to think that that's all I do. Besides, work and care for family is a talk on the phone. So I'm curious to hear you talk us through your blog and then we'll chat about it.

Susan:
Well I will start talking you through the blog but I think that's a very intersting point that you brought up already; is hanging up on the phone when the hubbie or significant other walks in the room, is that just common courtesy or is that avoiding a world war or does it not matter? I mean my mother gabbed away all day long with my dad just sitting right there and I don't know if it's because he's hard of hearing or if he's used to it.

Debbie:
I think it's a relationship thing. I know in our relationship Jeff just gets tired of hearing my talking on the phone, which I can understand that. I don't like to be with somebody else and they're having a whole conversation on their cell phone, I don't like it. So I just set it up, even though I'm on the phone very often, I try not to be on the phone when Jeff's around really out of courtesy to him. So when he comes home and I've got dinner prepared I just would much rather greet him with my lovely self than my lovely self and the phone attached to my ear.

Susan:
Well how I started out this blog is I was asking people, I asked in the blog 'what do girlfriends talk about? what do you and your girlfriends talk about?' And I think that probably, most people, if they have kids they're talking about their kids. When, whether your single or married, you're probably talking about your spouse or your significant other, like look we jumped into that right away, or your lack of a spouse or significant other. I think that that's a big conversation for a single girlfriend of mine. And it's likely that you're going to cover a range of topics from people to maybe what's in the news. But an interesting perspective is I'm wondering how often do women chat about God, about faith and about spirituality when they're gabbing with their girlfriends?

Debbie:
Well I do think that's interesting. Clearly, you and I, who have been friends for over 30 years talk about everything and I'm saying that with a capital E, I won't even go into details, but we talk about everything. But the interesting thing is that as close as friends as we are, we don't see each other that often, really our relationship has been built on the phone, so I think that we really have had some incredibly conversations about our spiritual lives. I think in particulary your spiritual journey, and your quest to finding your spiritual home and I think that I've learned so much from you and I think we've spent an unusual amount of time talking about spiritual life on the telephone.

Susan:
Now what happens, because we have a new generation, our daughters text like crazy and they're not on the phone. Would we just have the most super strong thumbs if we were that generation, for the amount of talking that we do?

Debbie:
I couldn't do it and you know it almost makes me sad that people are replacing talking with texting. I mean I think, honestly, that the telephone is one of the great inventions of all time but such a gift to us. I mean here you are, you spend your winters in Florida, I'm freezing my butt off here in Chicago, but we don't skip a beat. I have a sister who lives out of town, we have a regular talking schedule, I love it when I see her but I don't really feel like

I've missed that much because we've stayed in touch. And kids that are texting, you can't communicate the same way over a text, there's no intonation in the text and relationships are now formed over texting. I mean my daughter who's in the dating scene has guys texting her for dates instead of calling her, which drives me crazy.

Susan:
Well there was a great movie with Drew Barrymore and it was one of my favorite movies actually, I know you and I have completely opposite tastes in movies, but the movie was "He's Just not that into You," and she was talking about being broken up through 4 different portals; somebody texted her the break up and emailing and telephone calls. Yeah, there's not limit to the texting, so can you believe we're lamenting the next generation because they don't talk on the phone enough? And here I'm complaining about my mother because she spends hours each day on the telephone, talking to her girlfriends, that phone is never off her ear.

Debbie:
Well are you really complaining about it? Because one of the interesting things that I like about this blog, or one of the reasons that I chose it to talk about it, besides the fact that we do have this quite amazing phone relationship, is the fact that having the ability to talk on the phone keeps you in touch with people, whether you can physically be with somebody or not. You even quoted "when we truly take stock of our life accomplishments, isn't our greatest success the people that we touch?" And for me the phone has been a huge vehicle for that. So I applaud your mother for her time spent on the phone because she has incredible, incredible relationships.

Susan:
Well that's true and there's nobody that has as many girlfriends as my mother and I guess it does take up a lot of time. But we had to live there while our house was being built a few years ago, and it made me crazy because she seriously is never off the phone. 

Debbie:
Well that's my point about getting off the phone when my husband comes home. I drive him crazy enough, I don't want to drive him crazy in that arena either.

Susan:
Well you're right because it's kind of interesting because you're the one who chooses the blogs for us to talk about, when I said to you I was kind of surprised you chose this one because it wasn't very meaty and now you just said a real meaty passage and I want to repeat it. I'm going to read it out here and this is the part of the blog where I said You may not realize it, but in the gratitude of a zit-free complexion, you’re making the mundane, sacred. When you’re sharing joy and disappointments with another, you’re in communion with the Divine.

Solving problems, listening and laughing, are all part of your work here on earth, and it honors your Higher Power. And that kind of captures the essence of how I feel; we're not all going to be Nobel Peace Prize winners but if you can have a good conversation, lift each other up, and be there for our problems and our joys then we've done a really good job.

Debbie:
I agree. Thank you for adding for the joys because it's not just problems and complaining, it is sharing joys too.

Susan:
Well and we do share joys and I am grateful for all the joy that we share. And I want to read now a prayer from Prayables called . And it kind of illustrates what I'm talking about and it's just a wonderful prayer, Debbie, and I dedicate it to you. Gal Pals.

They're the ones that I can count on,
sure as the beads on an abacus.
It is miraculous to me
how You fit them into my life:
the childhood friend,
the college roommate,
the confidante,
the sisters by birth
and by marriage.
Treasures, all...
a profusion much greater
than one woman deserves.
Thank You for the bonds
forged by women's hearts,
for tangible evidence
of Your enduring love.
Knowing You could not
be present in flesh,
You sent me those
who can and are.

Debbie:
Amen. Thank you as always for sharing your blog and your beautiful prayer poetry and I love spending this time with you on air, and you know I love spending time with you on the telephone because that's how our relationship blossomed, on the telephone.

Susan:
Amen to that, if I may interject.

Debbie:
You may, it's your show.

Susan:
Our show, Debbie. I enjoyed it too, it’s always fast and fun on Prayables Radio. 
And for our listeners who want to find more faith-filled women’s conversation, blogs, prayers and now a new book – perfect for gift giving for yourself and other women in your life, discover www.prayables.com. 

Debbie:
And actually talk a little bit about the book. I think I told you I've given it as gifts and I'm loving it too, so tell us how people can get it.

Susan:
Well it's a collection of the prayer poetry from Prayables. You can get it at amazon.com and barnesandnobles.com, you can find it from the Prayables website. So I do hope women go out and get the book and share it. It's a great way to support Prayables and keeping us on the air and the website.

Debbie:
And with 2 day shipping you can still get it in time for Christmas if you want.

Susan:
There you go. Thanks for filling that out.

Debbie:
Leave it to a procrastinator to figure that out.

Susan:
Well Debbie what's for next time?

Debbie:
So next time I hope everybody will join us again at this same time, 12:00 central on Wednesday. It will be just before the new year and we will be blogging about your 'Get up and go, got up and Left.'

Susan:
I love it, thank you Debbie, thanks all my girlfriends out there and we'll see you next time.

Debbie:
Thanks Susan, bye bye!