Journal of Sacred Work

To care means first of all to be present to each other. – Henri Nouwen

   A student of Dr. Nouwen’s at Harvard Divinity School was walking with him across the campus after class. The student shared with Dr. Nouwen the recent death of his wife who passed away at age thirty-two. Suddenly, the student found himself weeping uncontrollably.

   What would the great Dr. Nouwen say? I wondered, as I listened to this story told to me by a psychologist at the Pastoral Counseling Centers of Tennessee. What words of wisdom would this great sage & author of over thirty books offer to this grieving man in the middle of the Harvard campus?… 

   If you have read Nouwen’s work, you might guess the answer. Nouwen said nothing. Instead, after awhile, he reached into his pocket, took out his handkerchief, and dabbed the man’s tears.

   Nouwen knew something many of us forget. The student’s suffering was beyond words. But it was not beyond the comfort of a sweet gesture.

   The great Parker Palmer reports a similar story. After he personally suffered through a terrible
bout of depression, he wrote about the person who helped him more than anyone. It was a friend who stopped by his house every so often, sat across from him, and silently massaged his feet.

   Many wonder what to say to someone who’s son has been killed in an accident or whose daughter has been raped or whose mother has been murdered."

   Nouwen and Palmer offer us wise counsel. Presence, particularly silent presence, may be the most welcome thing of all. Bringing food, massaging feet, dabbing tears, listening. These are valued gifts to a person seeking to purge grief.

   Some of the frequently chosen alternatives to silence are troubling. We’ve all been present when some well-meaning soul tries to talk someone out of their suffering prematurely. "You’ll be fine in a few days. This will pass." I heard someone say to the mother of a accident victim. They wanted her to "snap out of it" which, of course, would make it easier for them as well. It’s hard to share suffering. Some wish the sufferer would just cut out the crying and start smiling again. After all, wouldn’t most of us prefer to skip the hard chapters of our life?

   "Don’t be sad." Someone will instruct. "When God closes one window, he opens another." Maybe this is true for the speaker. But it may not feel comforting to the person who, at the moment, can only see darkness. The grieving person may even feel guilty: "Why can’t I see the window yet?"

   Another well intentioned but misdirected choice is the commonly offered sentence: "I know exactly how you feel." None of us knows how the other person feels, even if we imagine we’ve had a similar experience. To tell someone we know their precise feelings is to devalue the unique and personal nature of the pain they are suffering.

   It’s odd how we sometimes forget common sense when seeking to offer comfort. If your son was
killed in an accident, would you want someone to tell you "Oh, you’ll get over it." That’s not how grieving mothers and fathers feel. Instead, they feel broken and  trapped in grief as the sculpture of a grieving mother by Anna Vafia (left) depicts.   

   So why do we say such things?  Perhaps we have temporarily misplaced our gift of empathy. Feeling uncomfortable for ourselves, we try to get the other person to stop crying – to stop making us uncomfortable. But it’s about them, not us.

   Of course, there are many good things we can say out loud. We can offer to keep the person in our thougths and prayers, we can offer support and we can remember to check weeks later, after the early crowds have vanished. But this meditation is about illuminating the gift of silent presence.

   My wife is a master at this. Fifteen years ago, when she learned of a friend’s cancer diagnosis, she rose at five in the morning to deliver a basket of flowers and food to her friend’s front door. She arrived before dawn in silence, and left her gift in silence by the front door. Now, fifteen years into her recovery, my wife’s friend still remembers this gesture as one of the most graceful and healing gifts – something that gave her hope to launch her journey back to health. It was beautiful, unexpected, and offered in silence.

   Those who know the story of Job’s suffering know that his friends were not always helpful to him. Yet they did do one thing well. They tried to stay near by.

   We all need to grieve deep loss. People who try to nudge us through our
grief prematurely may be innocently forcing a shortcut that harms the
grief process. We must each work our own way along the path that
leads out of suffering and grief. Yet how hopeful it is to know that
caring friends are near along the way.

   America’s best caregivers, particularly those in hospice organizations like Alive Hospice in Nashville, often have an exquisite understanding of the power of offering silent presence to suffering. They know the words to offer and they also know that many times no words are adequate. They know that staying present with warmth and grace can be the most healing of all gifts. They appreciate that compassionate silence can offer a more powerful presence than the best intentioned words.

-Erie Chapman

Questions:

1) Why is compassionate silence effective?

2) Why is it often difficult to be silent in the presence of grief?

3) What are some of the ways we demonstrate compassionate being as well as compassionate doing?

4) What are occasions when you have received kind gestures that meant a lot to you?