I'll Have Three Seconds of Silence, Please.

What do you say when you don't know what to say? I remember being in my 20's at a funeral when a friend said, "Thank you for coming." I almost replied, "I'm glad to be here," which would be the wrong thing to say at a funeral. But we get in the habit of certain conversation starters like, "What's up?" followed by "Nothing much." "Glad to be here" at a funeral is more like a conversation ender. 

Here's what I continue to learn: some things can't be said in 140 characters. Nor does it need to be. Since when did every comment need to be tweetable or shrunk to a quote on a picture with a mountain in the background? 

As I've been in this series, "Mythbusters," I've been thinking a lot about our Christian-eeze slogans we use when we don't know what to say....

"Well God won't give you more than you can handle"
"Everything happens for a reason" 
"Just follow your heart" 

Most of which have less to do with Biblical Christianity and more to do with our momentary social awkwardness when we'd like to gracefully exit. (Maybe the truth is it that we want to say something profound and walk away with the other person saying, "What a gentleman" or, "What a sweet girl"?) 

This is the problem isn't it? We're more concerned about how we feel and our American aversion to three seconds of silence. 

As most Bible readers have noticed, Job's friends were most loving when they sat with him for seven days--speechless. (c.f. Job 2:13) It was when they opened their mouths that things went south. We could learn a lot from that. 

When my wife had emergency heart surgery, I was loved by 3 guys who showed up at the hospital and sat with me. Sometimes we talked and it was raw. There were no phrases I remember from their conversation. What I remember most is that they seemed to read when I needed to be quiet. Not once did I hear, "Everything happens for a reason." And man, was I grateful. 

Can we retire those phrases? Yes, we're all a bit different in how we deal with stress and grief. But I'm thinking the bigger the mountain, the deeper the valley, the less we should mention the obvious and the more we should simply let the silence go by with a bit of eye contact, a hand on the shoulder. Maybe sit in the corner and read a book or show up at their house and mow the lawn. How about we say, "I'm praying for you" less often, and just pray.

We could all benefit from a bit of stillness in this world of quotable quotes.