Ignorance Aloud

God spared me, again, from saying something stupid. Not that it required intensive intervention at the moment it happened. He’s been working me over on Ephesians 4:29 for quite some time. (Not that the “unwholesome talk” is much of a problem. But I tend to say quite a lot more than “what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.”)

The young volunteer wheelchair jockey initially came across as a bit inattentive (although, he had simply wandered over to the phone to let the front desk know that there was an unattended wheelchair in the surgical ward hallway), then perhaps too attentive (expressing himself regarding the difficulty of pushing an above-average weight—my wife—in a wheelchair with below-average tire inflation). There was something about the conversation, though, that suggested he truly enjoyed serving in this way, and that there might be some mitigating circumstance behind his unique social skills.

So often, you never get to know someone, and the moment of mystery passes, as does the memory of any odd statement or action as we go on about the rest of our day. But sometimes you do get to know a little more than you thought you might.

As the young man guided my wife toward the front entrance of the hospital, they approached an entering patient who wore a Colorado State University t-shirt. He immediately asked her if she were a student at CSU, and she said that she was a senior. Not everyone at a 20,000+ enrollment campus would know each other, but when he asked her if she would do him a favor when she returned to campus, the request was definitely attainable. “Look up Temple Grandin for me, and tell her I said hello.”

If you don’t know who Dr. Grandin is, nor why she would be especially important to this young man, nor why just about anyone attending CSU should know her, then you owe it to yourself to look her up yourself. (You don’t have to drive to Fort Collins, Colorado. Google will get it for you on the very first try.)

For my part, though, being an admirer of Dr. Grandin helped me to become an admirer of a young man who will probably never know that what he said today was “helpful for building (me) up according to (my) needs,” and I hope it does “benefit those who listen.” It did for me.

The Gracious Bereaved: Why sincerity in our hearts trumps the stupidity of our words

It's cute, at first.

My friend explained it this way. The visitor had nearly exhausted her. Pancreatic cancer left her with significantly less stamina than the hour-long visit had required, even though the conversation was primarily a monologue as the visitor related a litany of her own difficulties in the areas of health, relationships, and finances. “At least she knew not to ask, ‘How are you?’” my friend said.

But when I offered my regrets that she had been subjected to all that, my dying friend stunned me. “It was nice to have someone come to visit me.”

In light of that, and some comments on the last two posts, let me reiterate a point or two. First, those things on the list of what not to say? They’re things that have really been said. (I’ve said some myself.) I share them frequently, to dispell your fear of saying the wrong thing. You will, of course. But that no matter how badly you stumble, others have said far worse…and survived.

After awhile, though, it's awkward.

A second restatement, from the first of these three posts, is that questions (Other than, “How are you?”) are better than statements. But even questions are often unnecessary. The bereaved and dying are often longing for someone to sit quietly and listen. Let them know you’re really there (and not looking for the first opportunity to run from the room), prompt them with a question or two if necessary, and listen. “Bearing silent witness to their suffering,” said a friend, “is sometimes all you can do. But it’s often everything they need.” To simply know that someone knows something of our pain can mean more than all the words of all the philosophers, theologians, and Helen Steiner Rice wannabees combined.

Understand, though, that one of the elements of grief is Anger. There are times when the outrage of disease, disability, and imminent death results in lashing out at even those closest to us, even our primary caregivers. Even in those moments, however, the importance of presence still overcomes ridiculously inept statements. And that’s not just because the bereaved and dying are desperate for company.

Praying for a cure...

I was the one in the hospital bed. Widespread systems failures from an unknown cause left me attached to (and invaded by) most of the kinds of tubes and wires owned by Castleview Hospital in Price, Utah. I was conscious, and not terribly glad to be. No one from the congregation I served came to visit. My ministry supervisor, though, had called to assure me that the district office was praying for me. Still, I was feeling a bit desperate for company. But when a local ministry colleague arrived, he didn’t speak at first, clearly aghast at the sight. His eventual question was “How are you?” I managed not to respond verbally. (And it wouldn’t have been “Fine, and you?”)

But I was glad he came to visit. Admittedly, I was desperate for someone who was there to see me, rather than merely the charts, monitors, and reports in which my life had become enmeshed. So, despite incredulity at his question, I realized that I’d asked the same question just as inappropriately. I vowed there and then to try to stop.

And so the list was born. It’s up to “Fifty Things Not To Say to the Bereaved.” There will be more. I will keep showing up, listening, asking questions as necessary, and occasionally opening my mouth only to shock myself at how the sincerity of my heart can result in such stupidity in my words.

I hope not to presume too much upon it, but I do thank God for the graciousness of the bereaved. So far, none of them have thrown me out. And so I go, and listen, and ask questions as necessary, and pray that you find the courage to do the same.

Fifty Things Not To Say to the Bereaved

As I mentioned in my prior post, I’ve been compiling this list for some time. Others have written on the same theme, and you may have more to add to it. (I’d be grateful if you’d share, please.) I also know, from seminars and seminary classes I’ve taught, that not all of these are immediately clear to everyone. So, if you have questions or concerns about why a particular saying is on the list, please comment and I’ll try to explain concisely enough to fit into the space allowed. (And if you want a little more information on why I find this so important, the previous post, “Silence Is Rarely Golden, but the Alternative Is Often Mercurial,” is found here: http://deathpastor.blogspot.com/2013/08/silence-is-rarely-golden-but.html.)

Here’s what not to say:

1.       #1 – Nothing. (As in, don’t just say nothing.)

2.       Close Second – I know how you feel.

3.       How are you doing? (Unless you are sure you have the time to hear the answer.)

4.       It’s for the best. (Or, “It’s probably for the best.”)

5.       At least you still have…(your other children/your health/your youth/your other parent).

6.       Don’t forget you have others who need you. (esp., “Don’t forget your other children need you.”)

7.       You’ll meet someone else eventually.

8.       They wouldn’t want you to be sad/crying/depressed/angry/alone/etc.

9.       It’s not your fault.

10.    They’re in a better place.

11.    It was just their time to go.

12.    You’re strong enough to deal with this.

13.    You can put this behind you and get on with your life.

14.    God needed them in heaven.

15.    How long did the doctor say you have?

16.    Are you feeling any better yet?

17.    They’ll always be with you in your heart.

18.    I’m sorry I brought it up.

19.    You’re still young; you can (have another child/get remarried/etc.).

20.    Cheer up.

21.    It was God’s will.

22.    You’ll get over this.

23.    You were only a little-bit pregnant, right? It’s not like you lost a CHILD.

24.    It was/wasn’t meant to be.

25.    Look at how much you have to be thankful for.

26.    You’ll want to have someone around for awhile.

27.    They’re much happier now.

28.    Nothing will change the love you had for each other.

29.    God had another plan.

30.    I’ve had a similar experience…

31.    I can’t imagine what would have made them commit suicide.

32.    They had a full life.

33.    It’s time you started to move on with your life.

34.    Something good always comes out of tragedy.

35.    They’re no longer suffering.

36.    Call me if there’s anything you need.

37.    You know, the scripture teaches…

38.    You had a good long marriage/life with them.

39.    There, but for the grace of God, go I.

40.    Don’t cry/say that/feel that way.

41.    You couldn’t have known.

42.    Let’s change the subject.

43.    Everything happens for a reason.

44.    This, too, shall pass.

45.    We’ll always be here for you.

46.    Be glad he was _____, and not ______. (“5 mos, not 5 years,” “85 and not 45,” etc.)

47.    You should be glad they went quickly. (Or, “You should be glad they had time to put things in order.”)

48.    Any comparisons with anyone else’s losses.

49.    “You’ll be the youngest person we’ve ever had in long-term care.”

50.    To a teacher whose due-date would have been near the beginning of the school year, had she not miscarried: “At least this way you can plan the timing better next time.” (The teacher’s response: “After three miscarriages, I’ll take a baby on whatever schedule I can get one.”)

Silence Is Rarely Golden, but the Alternative Is Often Mercurial

Loading mercury with a pitchfork
   your truck is almost full. The neighbors
   take a certain pride in you. They
        stand around watching.

-Richard Brautigan

Mercury is difficult to handle (especially with a pitchfork, as Richard Brautigan understood), and dangerous as well. The potential for damage to yourself or others recommends we avoid it if at all possible.

That’s how many of us feel about talking to the bereaved. And so we opt for silence. I hope to change that.

A good friend, socially-adept, mutually acquainted with a couple enduring incredible distress, explained again last week that he had not called or visited them. “I don’t know what I would say,” was his well-reasoned motivation. Others have felt the need to say something, anything, and with unfortunate results. Those facing great difficulties, especially bereavement (“having experienced a significant loss, usually through the death of a loved one”), hear some truly amazing things.

If our words might be damaging, then silence should be the safer choice…except that it’s deadly. The echo of the past often deafens those in grief and mourning, disabling them from hearing a balance of the valued relationship and the reality of its loss. It helps to speak aloud past memories, along with today’s grief. But if all their friends are more fearful of speaking than they are of silence, they sit alone, searching for signs of continuity in their lives.

For a moment, imagine yourself speaking to a friend who has experienced a significant loss—and as you realize that you don’t know what you might say, consider also that silence is among the least effective alternatives. “But I might say the wrong thing.” Yes. That’s very true. In fact, those who are sure they know “the right thing to say” are often oblivious to how wrong they are. So, I would like to offer you two tools I find helpful.

Since one of the most helpful activities of mourning is reminiscence, the first tool is to simply go and listen. Simple questions are most helpful in starting the process. I serve many bereaved individuals and families. Most of them I am meeting for the very first time in the midst of one of their least-social moments. I ask, “What should I know about your circumstances that would help me serve you best?” For closer friends, I have asked, “What have you found yourself thinking about?” or “What are you feeling today?” (Remember, “How are you feeling?” suggests they tell us, “Fine, thanks.”) It doesn’t take much to start the conversation.

Second, though, since even when we’re committed to asking simple questions and then simply listening, there are so many things that sound so right…until we actually say them. I have found it helpful to catalog “The Wrong Things to Say.” So, if it helps motivate you to go and listen, then I’ll gladly share that list with you, so that you at least have a map of as much of the mine-field of well-intentioned platitudes as I’ve discovered so far. (I just learned a new one last Friday. It’s a beaut! You’ll find it at the end of the list.)

‘Til then, I remain…

Your servant for Jesus’ sake (II Corinthians 4:5),

Wm. Darius Myers, Death Pastor

Puzzle Pieces or Hand-Hewn Stones? (Understanding how you fit in is far more important than finding where you fit in.)

 Has it gone viral yet? There is a wonderful list of attributes ascribed to the kinds of churches to which The Millennial Generation is “entitled.” Remembering that every generation since The Great Depression has been called “The Entitled Generation,” most of us will be able to see past the initial phrase in most lines (“You are entitled to a church where…”) and recognize that many of the attributes are admirable, and too-often absent or inadequately applied in many congregations. If you’d like to read it, it’s here: http://www.thechurchofnopeople.com/2013/08/millennial-entitled-generation/.

Specifically, though, the post makes the point that if these things are not in evidence, “you are entitled to leave your church. You are entitled to a church that lets you go graciously when you decide to leave the church without calling you entitled or narcissistic.” Thankfully, that still leaves the words “self-ish” and, more specifically, “consumerist” to be considered. But here’s the comment I shared there and with friends who had recommended the post:

Entitled to leave your church? No. You’re not. Really. (Of course if, by “your” church, you mean the one you lived, suffered, bled, died, rose, and ascended for…then you can pretty much do whatever you want. But that only applies to the One Brother. Otherwise, you’re pretty much stuck with the rest of us that He has adopted into the family, and He says He worries about you if you find it annoying or inconvenient to attend the reunions.)

There are a number of problems with searching for a local congregation into which we fit so snugly and securely as a puzzle piece. But in many urban and suburban areas, those with sufficient affluence to afford unnecessary mobility are capable of driving past countless congregations of fellow-believers in order to extend their target radius. Even in our rural area, where a population under 10,000 is “served” by thirty faith communities, by the time you attend enough Sundays at each church to know that none are the church to which you’re entitled…well, our history is that, by then, there will be at least another half-dozen or so replacements for you to try.

So, unfortunately, you may search indefinitely, and never come to the place where you realize that the church to which you’re entitled…simply doesn’t exist. There is no “you-shaped gap” into which your puzzle-piece fits snugly and securely. Instead, there are stones, fitted and aligned with the Cornerstone. Roughly hewn-square by hand, they are “seated together” by literally grinding the rough edges down (both on the new stone and the old stones into which they are being fitted), until they are locked in place together. If you want the church to which you’re entitled, you need to grind out your own place, and allow Christ to grind on you so that we all fit together.

(I Peter 2:4-10 might help, too.)

“Do You See What I See?” (or Can Theology-in-Community Overcome My Anglo Presuppositions? To which the answer must be No. Not so long as I include in my theological community only those who agree with me.)

In a three-part series on “White Theology” by Dr. Paul Louis Metzger (it begins here: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/uncommongodcommongood/2013/07/white-theology-part-i/), he perceptively notes that much of our presuppositions in theology are imperceptible to us, that we either imagine naively that we may ignore racial issues in our pursuit of “pure theology,” or simply “fail to account for the tendency to proceed by way of our predominant, homogeneous tendencies and inclinations.” As a proponent of doing “Theology in Community,” I recognize my own preferences for doing theology primarily in communities who will tend to agree with me most. As an invitation to those whose perspectives vary from my own, here are a few of my thoughts about what Dr. Metzger has written.

In the communities I serve, there are those who have successfully cocooned themselves within enclaves of homogeneity. I see this as a damaging condition, and have sought to remedy it on occasion. We routinely help those struggling financially, socially, or physically to become better acquainted and participate in some activities and events they have imagined to be “beyond their means.” I have also, though, taken some of the upper-middle-class Anglos in my community (a segment in which my education allows me fellowship even though income and/or net-worth would not) on field trips, not as sight-seers, but in accompanying me to the neighborhoods and homes of others in our own congregation, within the ranks of fellow-employees of our schools and medical staffs, and among our schoolchildren’s parents where they had imagined every other child went home to families “just like theirs” at the end of each day. Even in doing this, I recognize my own tendency “to proceed by way of our predominant, homogeneous tendencies and inclinations.” I imagine that when others are faced with the same needs in the same community, they will come to the same conclusions I reach about the need for greater involvement in the lives of others. I have been very wrong about that at times. Please also know that I agree with Dr. Metzger that “race has everything to do with theology in American history,” but would quickly add that in place of the word “race” we could easily substitute “poverty” and probably some number of other terms equally applicable.

Certainly, we must address race. Race affects how we each perceive our communities, and individuals within them as part of “us” or of “them.” Our acceptance within or our rejection from the dominant culture, our understanding of “us and them,” however, may be triggered by a number of other causes. Are these other causes, though, always in addition to race, or might some of them affect us instead of race, transcending our historic cultural identities as we are “lumped together” by the neglect, disregard, oppression, and/or exploitation of others?

Within our communities, some multiracial families, neighborhoods, and other groups seem to experience even greater presumptive misunderstandings than might occur between families of different races who share geographic, cultural, and socio-economic traits. Though Blacks in such a situation would still be affected by “America’s heinous, historic capitulation to racism and slavery,” could they and those of other races within the same “undesirable” category (frequently identified by socio-economic stratification and especially with regard to specific types of employment) find other, far more recent conditions to be even more influential than the continuing inequities of the slave-economy? Are we open to the possibility that, in addition to race, other factors are as generationally pervasive within the communities we are called to serve? If so, then how do we engage the individuals, families, and communities who are less impacted by racial concerns than they are by the more immediate oppression and exploitation that, in some places for some people, binds together those of multiple races in an involuntary solidarity of suffering?

What is the prescription suggested by this diagnosis, though? In light of an “enculturated gospel,” is one step toward a dynamic solution the incorporation of multi-cultural participants as we do “theology in community?” Too frequently, we choose the community on the basis of theological agreement, leading to homogeneity in race and economics. I have had the rare and uncomfortable privilege of being surprised, confronted, offended, and blessed by others’ diverse perspectives. I still remember fondly a bible study, in which I was the sole Christian, coming to the conclusion, “No. What Jesus did there? That’s not right.” Hardly fits within my presupposition that “If Jesus said or did it, it must be right.” But it also helped me to understand more deeply how I tended to envision that my service within that community was, by definition, “Right,” whether anyone agreed with, or was even asked about, my assumption. And so, I reiterate my invitation: Please join in the conversation, and help me to see my assumptions by sharing your own perceptions of the issues raise.

[Remember: You don’t have to be a Christian in order to share your theology. We all think about God, even if we decide He doesn’t exist. What comes to mind when you think about God could be an important blessing toward the “Theology in Community” I am exploring. Thanks in advance for choosing to share it with me.]