I think you've put your finger on it, Tupp.
The reason those two Zoom groups are so positively distracting for me is that they're not just "friend groups" (where folks would naturally talk about personal lives and problems, often at length). They are structured groups with intentional topics, which allows people to focus on the pleasure of discussion and thinking for its own sake. But there's some personal news time built in, too.
The co-ed group has abandoned structured topics for now and it is still interesting, but I think I actually enjoy the topic discussions more, since I haven't spent enough social time with most of those people to follow everything quite as well. I think the Covenant Group has the best structure of all, because its format gives you the best of both. I call it "the churchiest part of church" is the sense not of religion, but of feeling love and feeling loved during it. Here's how a Covenant Group meeting goes:
--Opening Words/Chalice Lighting (short reading that is germane to gathering...kind of acknowledging "here we are together again and this has meaning")
--Check-Ins (each person gets up to 5 minutes uninterrupted) to give an overview of how they are doing in the present and for the last two weeks). Because of these, we stay on top of what's happening personally for each other.
--Topic Discussion (whoever's leading explains the topic, and repeats 2-4 "questions to ponder" that generally were emailed a few days before. Then we just speak, uninterrupted due to the "Talking Stick". You can focus on any or all of the questions to say whatever comes to mind, or you can forgo that and just free-associate in any way you'd like about the topic). We don't strictly track time amounts but over time, I've noticed people develop a rhythm and share time quite well, with everyone having time to speak and nobody left out.
--Closing Words (another reading to wind up the structured part). Blow out candle. (The leader does a candle for everybody. These days, I just hold up the big fat candle we've always used when gathering at my house. And we raise hands instead of passing a "talking object/stick.")
When I lead I invariably subject everyone to a nice long poem and they put up with that very kindly. Sometimes people just Google quotations on a topic and read them to get us started; those are good too. Or something else. It's fun to lead because you are really creating a "thinking experience" to share--and no single person dominates discussion and people don't get interrupted. And the way different people approach it is fascinating.
I tried a Zoom-with-a-friend again yesterday and it was a surprisingly intimate conversation. This woman (who's also in my Covenant Group) shared a lot of very personal stuff, and I found I did too. Oddly, rather than M, I wound up talking most about my mother, as she had been discussing hers, and we talked about N-ism and things like that in some depth. It was terrific. We talked for an hour and agreed we're going to do it again and for the same reason--we know winter is coming and feel we don't want to turn down any opportunity to be social, even on Zoom.
I wonder if some of the folks who occasionally call your son for a chat would try that with him?
hugs
Hops
