I don’t understand the need for all of the words.  I am amazed that, in the face of death or grief (based on my own experience and others that I’ve been witness to) a good percentage of people talk. They talk incessantly. They talk as though if they used enough words they could make everything better. They talk as though they have a direct pipeline to God and know exactly why that person died or is sick. They talk as though each death has some well-thought out reason behind it. Why do people think they need to talk so much?  Why do they feel the need to apologize for and justify God’s actions? Why do they need to verbalize their God construct and connect it with the event currently taking place? I’m not sure.

I do know that I find it annoying on good days and appalling the rest of the time. Is this the clamor of voices that non-Christian’s hear in the face of death? Is this the answer that we, we the people of the resurrection who have more cause than anyone to rejoice and hope and look towards eternity, give to the despairing and grieving world around us? If this is how we talk to fellow Christians who grieve and who can at least try to be gracious and re-translate what’s said to give the benefit of the doubt, how on earth do we expect to talk to someone who mourns without hope?

What angers me most is the horrible picture that we paint of God because we can’t just be quiet and just sit with grief. Words come in meaningless phrases only to haunt the grieved later. Maybe God took her so she wouldn’t suffer something that was going to happen later. God just wanted X to be with him because he loves him so much. Maybe he was too good to be here. Maybe God wants you to learn something from this. Maybe this was to teach X something. We know that this is all part of God’s perfect plan. Maybe God wanted to bring the family together and this is how he chose to do it. Maybe her death in the hospital will impact others around her and because of her they’ll become Christians. Don’t worry, God is in control of all of this.

Stranger still is the expected response from the bereaved or the grieving. It is almost expected that you listen to someone’s interpretation of God and then smile and thank them for their…comfort. When what you want to say is more along the lines of, Well, glad to know that God’s the one to blame… I was wondering who to yell at, thanks for telling me. The other day I was asked if my mom was a Christian. When I affirmed that she was, the gentleman got a relieved good-that’s-settled look on his face and told me that probably this was happening so that people at the hospital will become Christians because of her death. He was lucky I kept quiet. Because quite frankly, if I had to choose my mom being around to spend time with her grandchildren and see my sister get married and see my brother graduate from high school in two years over some nameless person in passing becoming a Christian because of her death, I know which one I’d choose. Maybe that sounds bad, but since when do you go around telling someone that their mom is probably dying because God wants to reach the unsaved in the hospital and couldn’t think of a better way to do it?

We are not comfortable with death and we don’t know how to grieve. We throw words at people, drop off a casserole and a card, and run. More and more the Jewish custom of grieving makes sense. The sitting with people in silence. Weeping with them. Feeding them. Going with them when they finally leave the house after the mourning period ends. Tangible actions that don’t try to make things better or explain them away. It’s okay to not have the right words to say. Don’t say anything at all. Sit. Touch. Hug. Hold. Be. Show God’s love, don’t verbally misrepresent him.